Mattco Forge, Inc. v. Arthur Young, et al.
Published: Jul. 2, 1994 | Result Date: Jun. 21, 1994 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: C731746 – $42,609,700
Judge
Court
L.A. Superior Central
Attorneys
Plaintiff
John M. Moscarino
(Valle & Makoff LLP)
Defendant
Experts
Plaintiff
Henry Stotsenberg
(technical)
Defendant
Marshall B. Grossman
(technical)
Jeffrey H. Kinrich
(technical)
Facts
In an underlying lawsuit filed against General Electric in July of 1985 and dismissed in February of 1989, Plaintiff Mattco Forge, Inc., had hired the accounting firm Arthur Young -- which later merged into Ernst & Young, the Defendants in the instant suit -- as experts to assist in their lawsuit. In the underlying suit, Mattco, whose president is Hispanic, had contended that GE decided to cut off the company from doing further business because of his ethnicity, thus violating federal civil rights laws. In preparing the case, Arthur Young's litigation consultant, Thomas W. Blumer, asked Mattco's president to fill in gaps in the company's records by creating estimate sheets for a number of old GE contracts "as you would have worked them up at the time." Litigation support by accountants often involves putting together noncontemporaneous financial records, in order to calculate damages, but such recreated records must always be disclosed as such. Allegedly, Mr. Blumer, an auditor with no litigation support experience, handed over the recreated estimates along with actual business records (of Mattco's) as if they were contemporaneous.
Settlement Discussions
Plaintiff contends is demanded $40,000,000 during trial and Defendant offered $57,000.
Damages
$42,609,713
Deliberation
3 days liability, 10 days compensatory, 7 days punitive
Poll
varied
Length
4.5 months
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