James E. Marshall, et al. v. The Baldwin Company, et al.
Published: Jul. 6, 2002 | Result Date: May 1, 2002 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: 725825 Verdict – $886,902
Judge
Court
San Diego Superior
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Steven M. Strauss
(Cooley LLP)
Defendant
Mark J. Dillon
(Gatzke, Dillon & Ballance LLP)
Experts
Plaintiff
Harold Brown
(technical)
William Thomas
(technical)
John C. Stevenson Jr.
(technical)
Defendant
John P. Landry
(technical)
Steven W. McCormick
(technical)
John Weeks
(technical)
Facts
The plaintiffsÆ action involves property damage claims resulting from alleged construction defects to a total of
239 single-family residences in six separate subdivisions in the Paloma master-planned community, located in
the city of San Marcos, Calif.
The complaint included allegations of construction deficiencies relating to roofs, windows, stucco and a variety
of other defect claims.
Settlement Discussions
Prior to trial, the plaintiffs revised their settlement demand to $2.8 million.
Damages
The plaintiffsÆ original cost of repair estimate for all six subdivisions was in excess of $20 million. However, because of the number of parties involved, and because of the estimated length of a trial (six months) the plaintiffs and developer jointly filed a motion for separate trials with respect to each of the six subdivisions. The motion was granted and the parties proceeded to trial on one subdivision representing 54 homes. At trial the plaintiffs requested in excess of $4 million in damages for the 54 houses involved in the first trial. The plaintiffsÆ demand represented a cost of repair of over $83,000 per house.
Other Information
The jury awarded the plaintiffs $639,690 in damages plus an additional $247,212 in relocation costs. This resulted in a recovery of $16,424 per house.
Deliberation
8 days
Length
53 days
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