Page 19 - July2019 FOP Magazine

intent to benefit disabled officers like the plaintiffs directly. The plaintiffs’ statistician expert claimed that this extreme- ly small sample size would sufficiently prove the entire class of donors’ intent. However, this opinion appeared to have no scientific support.
Accordingly, in pretrial motions, the Lodge successfully moved to strike the statistician’s expert testimony and barred his testimony at the trial, leaving the plaintiffs at a severe dis- advantage. In a prior ruling, the judge also had barred the plaintiffs from calling 70,000 witnesses at the trial, so they would have no way to prove their case effectively. The plain- tiffs did have the ability to use an accounting expert at the trial, which proved to be equally ineffective. At the trial, the plaintiffs only called a handful of donors.
After a five-day trial and extensive post-trial briefing, the judge found in favor of the Lodge and Callan and against the plaintiffs. The ruling is very detailed and essentially adopts all of the Lodge’s trial arguments. The judge did enter a judgment against the defaulted subcontractors (who failed to show up at the trial) in excess of $1 million. However, the judge clear- ly ruled that no agency relationship existed between the de- faulted subcontractors and either the Lodge or Callan. More importantly, the judge found that any admission by the de- faulted subcontractors was not binding on either the Lodge or Callan. In essence, the plaintiffs have a judgment against the defaulted subcontractors, who claim to be judgment-proof since they have been out of business for years (and have no
funds to collect from). A hollow victory.
The Lodge’s litigators’ strategy in getting the statistician
barred proved to be vital. In Judge Mullen’s ruling, he ignored the plaintiffs’ so-called accounting expert entirely. Instead, the court relied almost exclusively on the Lodge’s accounting expert’s trial testimony.
As part of the Lodge’s case, the litigators also produced former Lodge President and current Trustee Mark Donahue, as well as Lodge Treasurer John Capparelli — both of whom the court found to be credible and who supported our the- ories and defenses. On the other hand, Judge Mullen did not find the testimony of the six donors credible. In addition, the plaintiffs admitted into evidence 122 exhibits, totaling more than 16,000 pages, yet still could not satisfy the burden of proof.
The Lodge’s main attorneys in this odyssey deserve special thanks: Maureen McGuire, of the law firm Anderson Rasor and Partners LLP, and Ira Helfgot. They spent nearly 20 years defending the Lodge in these protracted proceedings, never veering off target. They each provided sound legal advice and zealously represented the Lodge at the trial to a resounding victory.
Although the Lodge spent an extraordinary amount of time and resources defending this case, the outcome could not have turned out any better.
Once again, great job, Maureen and Ira!
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