HLG Wins 3-Week Jury Trial Against Wachovia Bank (a Wells Fargo Company) / February 11, 2011

Jeff Huron and Phu Nguyen, trial attorneys representing 227 Larchmont Village Partners, LLC in a case against Wachovia Bank, did not have to wait long to receive great news.  At the end of a lengthy and contentious three-week trial, a Los Angeles jury reached a verdict after deliberating less than a full day.  The result was a seven-figure award that matched—to the penny—the amount Mr. Huron had requested for his client. 

The case involved a ten-year lease Wachovia entered into in mid-2008 in order to open a bank branch at 227 Larchmont Boulevard in Hancock Park.  Shortly after the lease was signed, Wachovia teetered on the brink of financial collapse and announced its merger with Wells Fargo.  Unfortunately, the building at 227 Larchmont Boulevard was located next door to an existing Wells Fargo branch.   Wachovia terminated the lease but denied any liability, claiming that the lease was invalid and alternatively, that the landlord had breached. 

For the next two years, Wachovia vigorously litigated the case.  Wachovia hoped that its vast financial and legal resources would wear down HLG’s client and force it to accept a low six-figure settlement offer.  Wachovia’s hardball tactics, however, proved no match for Mr. Huron and his specialty trial litigation firm, HLG.  Attacking every aspect of Wachovia’s case, HLG defeated Wachovia’s strategy to exclude evidence of its financial condition and Wells Fargo merger and succeeded in throwing out Wachovia’s central defenses at trial.  “This case was a ‘gun fight’ against a national bank that fought us tooth-and-nail at every juncture,” said Mr. Huron, “so I am very pleased with the outcome.”  

Albert Mizrahi, the principal of 227 Larchmont Village Partners, LLC was extremely pleased with the victory, stating, “The team at HLG did an outstanding job.  I always felt that I had the best attorneys on my side.”