Dateline: Atlanta, Georgia
November 19, 2001
HEADLINE
Lowndes County Jury Awards Record 1.87 Million Dollar Verdict
The Superior Court of Lowndes County has confirmed that Atlanta lawyer Wade H. Watson, III of Caldwell & Watson, LLP and his co-counsel, Mike S. Bennett, Sr. of Valdosta obtained a record verdict of $1,870,710.00 for their client, Vijay Patel. The verdict included $1,200,000.00 in punitive damages and was awarded late Wednesday after a week and a half jury trial. Mr. Watson reports that, according to local sources, the verdict is the highest award ever made by a Lowndes County jury.
The jury found that the Defendants Arvind Patel, M.D., of Chicago, his wife Varsha, and Prashant Kothari, M.D. of Tiffin, Ohio were liable for breaching their fiduciary duties to Vijay Patel as a minority stockholder of their closely held corporation, Interstate Development Services of Lake Park, Georgia, Inc. (IDS). The corporation owns 149 acres of land along I-75 at the Bellview Road exit, formerly Exit 1. The corporation's land includes nearly a mile of frontage along Interstate 75 and the corporation has already erected three monopole billboards for advertising to northbound and southbound traffic near the Florida State line.
Mr. Vijay Patel contended that the Defendants had acted to freeze him out of the corporation and to deprive him of the income the corporation had generated from a sale of 1.1 million dollars worth of property to Flying J truck stop in 1995 and from the income from the sign rentals that the corporation received thereafter.
The trial was the culmination of a long legal battle that began when the corporation sued Mr. Patel in 1992. Mr. Patel contended that the 1992 lawsuit was part of an effort by the Defendants to squeeze him out of the corporation. The judgment that the corporation obtained against Mr. Patel in that lawsuit was set aside by the Superior Court of Cook County because the Defendants had improperly withheld evidence of the 1.1 million dollar Flying J contract from Vijay Patel and his counsel.
The Plaintiff accused two Valdosta attorneys of complicity in withholding evidence that required the first trial to be set aside. In his closing argument, Mr. Bennett suggested to the jury that they award 1.1 million dollars in punitive damages because that was the amount of the contract which the Defendants had withheld from the Plaintiff. Mr. Bennett and Mr. Watson commented that they felt the punitive damage award of 1.2 million dollars was a clear expression of the jury's disapproval of the Defendants and their former counsel's conduct in withholding material information from the Plaintiff. The Defendants were represented in the Lowndes County trial by Stephen C. Andrews of the Atlanta firm of Bodker, Ramsey & Andrews, P.C., J. Jeffrey Helms, Jr. of Homerville, and William Al Turner, Jr. of Valdosta. Counsel for the Plaintiff made it clear that these attorneys were not involved in the first trial and had nothing to do with the withholding of any documents which contributed to the punitive damage award.
Mr. Bennett, who is the second generation of three generations of Valdosta trial lawyers, expressed appreciation to Mr. Watson, who was brought into the case because of his experience in handling disputes among the owners of closely held corporations.
