Diana Torres

A highly regarded litigator, Torres has had her share of out of the ordinary cases. For instance, there’s the newly settled class action from Illinois over whether a commercial oven used to make naan bread can be called a tandoori oven, or the one in which she sued the Federal Trade Commission in Utah to stop what she saw as bullying of the small business she represented. That case also resolved well for her client.

But none may be as bizarre as the identity theft lawsuit she won in March. It was surprising that she won a complete summary judgment for a plaintiff. It was extraordinary that the judgment awarded $1.8 billion in damages.

The really strange part was that that the case wasn’t about one person pretending to be another person. It was about one company pretending to be another company — a huge, famous company that is no longer in business.

“It may be one of the most unusual cases that I’ve ever come across,” Torres said.

As she tells the story, Morrison Knudsen Co. was an iconic 20th century construction company that was the lead engineering firm on the Hoover Dam, among other monumental projects. Financial difficulties pushed it into bankruptcy in 1996, which led to a series of mergers and acquisitions.

But in 2008, a company calling itself Morrison Knudsen Corp. began bidding on big construction jobs. One of those jobs was for AECOM Energy and Construction Inc., which coincidentally owns the original company’s assets and trademarks.

“They submitted the bid to someone who used to be part of the Morrison Knudsen legacy company, and he asked them, ‘How is it you’re operating as Morrison Knudsen, because I thought we were Morrison Knudsen?’” Torres said.

“It was really corporate identity theft,” she said.

She sued on behalf of AECOM. The defendants did little to defend themselves, she said, allowing her client to win the $1.8 billion summary judgment. The damages were estimated from press releases because the defendants never produced financial statements.

On March 24, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the judgment to stand but remanded for a more accurate damages calculation. AECOM Energy and Construction Inc. v. Morrison Knudsen Corp., 19-55588 (9th Cir., decision March 24, 2021).

“We won on the issue of standing, and that’s what I needed to win on,” she said.

— Don DeBenedictis