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Judge Denies New Trial In Armenian Genocide Museum Dispute

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  • Judge Denies New Trial In Armenian Genocide Museum Dispute

    JUDGE DENIES NEW TRIAL IN ARMENIAN GENOCIDE MUSEUM DISPUTE

    BLT: Legal Times
    Feb 21 2013

    More than a decade after efforts began to build a museum memorializing
    the mass slaughter of Armenians during World War I, litigation over
    the failure of those efforts has consumed everyone involved.

    Yesterday, a Washington federal judge denied a motion for a new trial
    in the dispute and ordered the plaintiffs to pay the defendants $1.4
    million in fees and costs.

    Minnesota philanthropist and businessman Gerard Cafesjian tangled for
    years with museum trustees over who was to blame for the project's
    failure and what should happen to buildings Cafesjian donated to
    house the museum. Following a bench trial, U.S. District Judge Colleen
    Kollar-Kotelly found that the buildings should return to Cafesjian.

    Yesterday, she denied the trustees' motion for another trial.

    Over the trustees' objections, she also ordered them to pay Cafesjian
    $1.4 million in fees and costs, a figure based on recommendations
    from U.S. District Magistrate Judge Alan Kay. Cafesjian's legal team
    was led by Jones Day attorneys.

    Cafesjian's lead attorney, John Williams of Cozen O'Connor - who until
    recently was with Jones Day - said today that the rulings moved his
    client one step closer to making the museum a reality. "It's been a
    struggle, but we're getting closer and closer to having clean title
    in order to go ahead," he said.

    Lead counsel for the museum trustees, Eric Abraham of Hill Wallack
    in Princeton, N.J., could not immediately be reached for comment today.

    The trustees moved for a new trial after learning new information
    about one of Cafesjian's co-defendants, John Waters Jr. They claimed
    that according to a lawsuit that Waters filed against Cafesjian in
    U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota, Cafesjian had agreed
    to pay Waters $400,000 to $800,000 for any work he did to help secure
    a positive outcome in the D.C. litigation. Waters didn't disclose that
    information in the Washington proceedings, and the trustees argued
    that it undermined his credibility in a way that warranted a new trial.

    But Kollar-Kotelly disagreed, writing that there was no concrete
    evidence that Waters' allegations were true - his Minnesota lawsuit
    was still in the early stages - and, even if they were, she said any
    revelations wouldn't have changed the outcome. The judge wrote that
    from the beginning, she knew that almost everyone involved in the
    litigation, including Waters, was biased because they had a financial
    stake or their reputation was on the line.

    "If true, the fact that Cafesjian promised Waters $400,000 to $800,000
    in the event Cafesjian was successful in the litigation is consistent
    with the bias the Court (and the parties) knew Waters possessed when
    he took the stand," Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

    The plaintiffs appealed Kollar-Kotelly's initial decision entering
    judgment for Cafesjian, but that appeal was put on hold while she
    weighed the motion for a new trial. Yesterday's decision likely means
    that the appeal is active again.

    On the issue of fees, Kollar-Kotelley rejected the trustees' argument
    that they shouldn't have to reimburse Cafesjian and Waters, as former
    museum board members, for fees incurred through the litigation. The
    judge had previously found that Cafesjian and Waters didn't breach
    their fiduciary duties to the museum, meaning they were covered by
    museum by-laws requiring indemnification for legal costs.

    Kay sifted through the defendants' request for $2.8 million in
    legal fees and costs - less than the nearly $4 million they claimed
    their attorneys logged on the case - and issued a report last April
    recommending they receive $1.4 million.

    In yesterday's opinion, Kollar-Kotelly found that Kay came up with a
    reasonable formula for calculating fees that took into account any
    possible excessive billing. Under Kay's guidelines, the plaintiffs
    were on the hook for half of attorneys' "blended" billing entries,
    meaning general entries for work done as part of litigation, such as
    writing briefs or participating in the trial.

    http://legaltimes.typepad.com/blt/2013/02/judges-denies-new-trial-in-armenian-genocide-museum-dispute.html

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