Yegish Sogomonyan v. Discount Jewelry Center, et al.
Published: Sep. 23, 1995 | Result Date: Sep. 1, 1995 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: BC094852 – $850,000
Judge
Court
L.A. Superior Central
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Defendant
Experts
Plaintiff
James D. Marshall
(technical)
Defendant
Bruce Spiegel
(technical)
Facts
In 1989 Plaintiff Yegish Sogomonyan leased a booth in downtown Los Angeles at one of the jewelry district multi-vendor plazas. The only people with individual access to the building were the owners and the janitor. On December 13, 1992, Plaintiff conducted business and closed shop in the usual manner. The next morning, when Plaintiff arrived at his place of business, one of his 2 safes had been opened and all of the contents, his inventory, was missing. At the same time, the building VCR that had been connected to the security system was stolen as well. Prior to this discovery, management had received complaints from many of the building tenants about various things being missing overnight and their suspicions that the janitor was the reason for these losses. LAPD investigated the loss and determined that no forced entry was made to the building; that the electronic alarm had been set the previous evening and no disruption had occurred; and that the janitor had entered the building at 6:30 a.m. on December 14, 1992; he later left and had not reactivated the alarm. Based on polygraph tests and other information, the police suspected the Plaintiff of having staged the inventory disappearance. No arrests were made in the criminal investigation.
Settlement Discussions
Plaintiff contends that no offers or demands were exchanged prior to trial; and on the first day of trial, Plaintiff demanded $600,000 and Defendants offered $5,000.
Damages
Plaintiff claimed a loss of 14K gold jewelry, cash and checks in the amount of $625,000 plus or minus $25,000. There was no paper trail for the inventory or other losses. In addition, Plaintiff claimed a damage to his commercial reputation, family relationships, personal and business credit.
Other Information
This was the Plaintiff counsel's first trial.
Deliberation
2 hours
Poll
9-3 negligence, 10-2 causation, 9-1 no contributory negligence (2 abstentions), and 11-0 damages (1 abstention)
Length
5 days
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