RECENT TRIAL AND ARBITRATION RESULTS
Successful Arbitration against PayPal, Inc. – We successfully defeated Fortune 100 corporation, PayPal, Inc. in a week-long arbitration in San Diego concerning the enforceability of PayPal’s User Agreement and PayPal’s unilateral efforts to impose penalty damages for alleged violations of its User Agreement. We were successful in obtaining an arbitration award against PayPal, Inc. which required PayPal, Inc. to return approximately $240,000 of our client’s funds that PayPal had improperly withheld as penalty charges and defeated PayPal’s cross-claims for an additional $150,000 of penalty claims that it sought to impose against our client.
Defense Trial Verdict in Partition and Quiet Title Action. – We successfully defended a property owner in connection with a partition, quiet title and fraud action brought by a family member regarding the alleged forgery of a grant deed that was recorded more than 30 years ago. The Plaintiff, a close family relative of our client, brought the action to seek a division of the value of a single-family residence in Pasadena and for reimbursement of alleged improvements that the Plaintiff had made to the property. After more than 7 days of testimony, we were successful in obtaining a defense verdict as to all claims and protected our client’s ownership rights to his family’s residence.
Successful Jury Trial Verdict on Medical Practice Ownership Dispute – We recently won a jury trial on a breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, and dissolution of a two-member medical practice located in Anaheim. Our client was the defendant and cross-complainant and we were successful in obtaining a jury verdict entirely defeating the plaintiff’s claims and awarding our client a substantial 6-figure judgment on the cross-complaint claims.
Plaintiff Victory on Employment Fraud Trial – We successfully obtained a fraud judgment on behalf of a large property owner/employer client against a former employee who had defrauded our client through a price-fixing and payment scheme with various contractors and material suppliers who were to perform remodeling work on our clients’ various residential apartments upon tenant move-outs.
Successful Arbitration for Real Estate Non-Disclosure Damages – We successfully represented a buyer of a multi-family residential apartment against the seller for the seller’s non-disclosure of material facts concerning improperly zoned unit mix resulting in a decrease in the number of allowable units. Following a multi-day Arbitration, the Arbitrator awarded our client damages for both the loss of rental income and costs to permit the out of classification unit.
Court Trial Victory in Breach of Fiduciary Duty Defense – We successfully defended brokerage and salesperson clients through trial against claims of breach of fiduciary duty and breach of contract alleged against them by unrepresented sellers. Clients allegedly failed to investigate, identify and disclose code enforcement citations issued by the local governmental authority to both buyer and seller even though seller was aware of and working with the governmental authority to resolve such code enforcement actions. Sellers in an attempt to shift liability for their own non-disclosure to buyers, sued our clients. Following extensive discovery the matter was submitted to a court trial where our clients were fully vindicated on all claims. Not only did the Court find that our clients did not breach any fiduciary or legal duty to the sellers, that the sellers were liable to our clients for all costs and attorneys’ fees incurred in the successful defense of the action.
Jury Trial Victory in Premises Liability Defense – Yassin Legal successful defended a large residential apartment owner in a personal injury lawsuit brought against our client by a former tenant who alleged that our client had failed to comply with building code requirements to modify and update its patio sliding glass doors to tempered glass. The underlying plaintiff – who admitted to being intoxicated – had somehow managed to kick through a patio sliding glass door and sustained severe injuries to his foot and ankle. Plaintiff alleged that our client had fallen below the applicable standard of care in the management of their property by failing to upgrade all windows and glass doors to tempered glass which Plaintiff’s expert alleged would have been stronger and that if such glass shattered it would not have resulted in the severe lacerations. We successfully defended the action and convinced the jury that our client had no obligation to upgrade all of the windows and sliding glass doors and that our client was fully compliant with all statutory requirements by complying with the construction codes applicable at the time of original construction.
Business Arbitration Victory in Engineering Breach of Contract – Yassin Law successfully obtained an Arbitration award in a complex business dispute involving precision engineered component parts for industrial turbines. Our client was the manufacturer of high-value metal parts which were to be incorporated into industrial turbines used for environmental clean-up operations at coal-fired energy plants. Our client’s parts are required to be heat-stressed and tempered to specific parameters to comply with customer specifications. The respondent metal tempering company failed to properly temper our client’s products – resulting in damage to the rods that rendered the product unsuitable to delivery to the customer. Respondent failed to remedy or even acknowledge responsibility such that a commercial arbitration was initiated and pursued to a successful award with all damages and costs and fees being awarded to our client.
Sales Commission Arbitration Victory – Yassin Law prosecuted and obtained a 6-figure commission on the sale of industrial property. Our client brokerage and sales team were cheated out of a half-million sales commission when the seller attempted to end-run our client’s sales efforts to directly sell a large industrial warehouse. Seller ignored all requests for payment on the earned commission and forced our client to arbitration. At arbitration, we successfully established that our client had performed all tasks required of them to earn the commission as per the terms of their exclusive listing agreement and that Seller had deliberately attempted to avoid paying the commission even though Seller ultimately sold to an identified institutional buyer that our client had submitted its marketing package to for review. The Arbitrator awarded the entire earned commission plus arbitration costs and attorneys’ fees to our client following a week-long proceeding.