I recently represented a European art gallery in a dispute over a sculpture that was sold to an American buyer in one of our western states. Unfortunately, the sculpture was damaged during shipment. Normally, this would be a straightforward situation of the shipper’s insurance company paying for the damage or for a return of the sculpture for the original purchase price. However, during the period between the payment and discovery of the damage, the exchange rate between the European Union countries and the U.S. had significantly changed.

     The purchase price was less than 500,000 Euros (€500,000), but in order to pay that price in Euros, the buyer had to provide just under $600,000 in US dollars consistent with the exchange rate at that time. When the statue was to be returned, the exchange rates had evened out so that the approximately €500,000 purchase (i.e., return price) was roughly equal to about $500,000. The buyer didn’t want to accept the equivalent of $500,000, but wanted what he paid for the sculpture in U.S. dollars, i.e., nearly $600,000. Needless to say, spirited negotiations ensued. The buyer brought a lawsuit in its home state and there were additional legal issues of whether there was personal jurisdiction over the European gallery, no representative of which had ever stepped foot in the buyer’s state. The law pertaining to personal jurisdiction has evolved over the past several decades and this became an issue of who solicited whom. Was it the buyer who had approached the gallery a couple of years before the sale, or the gallery, which notified the buyer that it had located a sculpture by the artist earlier sought by the buyer? Eventually the matter was settled before an Answer to the Complaint was filed, thus saving all parties what would have been substantial legal fees in the effort to vindicate their positions in court. The gallery now has the sculpture, which is being repaired for resale and the purchaser has received compensation.

     In my ongoing case for a Chinese company which obtained an arbitration award and later a verdict against a Massachusetts defendant company and its owner, the net result after the haze of post-trial motions and proceedings, is that an original payment by my client of just over $1 Million, which resulted in an arbitration award of $1.4 Million, had expanded to a judgement of $2,102,453. That figure included an award to my client of its attorney’s fees of over $568,000 because the jury found that the defendants had violated a Massachusetts statute, Chapter 93A, which prohibits unfair and deceptive trade practices. The judgment will also include interest since mid-2018, per the arbitration award, which is expected to be over $457,000, for a total judgment of over $2.6 Million.

     As you know from earlier newsletters, I have been involved for many years in education cases both at the university and secondary school level. Recently I was called upon to represent the family of a young high school student. She is an excellent student academically and also an excellent golfer and a member of the high school’s girls golf team. Last school year, she was prompted to notify the mother of a student on the opposing school’s team that her daughter had not scored a game properly. The mother complained not about her daughter’s actions, but about the messenger, my client. Instead of investigating the allegations, the high school suspended my client from playing in any golf matches for the remainder of that year. This past year, they continued to ban her from the golf team unless she in effect admitted that she had done something wrong by calling out the other girl to her mother. It was a tale surrealistically reminiscent of Kafka’s “The Trial”. It was a serious matter not just over a game of golf (which can, as you know, be fierce), but even more so because it affected my young client’s emotional health and wellbeing. The school was initially unrelenting in its zeal to punish my client. Fortunately, once the school district’s attorney got involved, we were able to reach a reasonable resolution that resulted in my client rejoining the golf team this Spring. In these situations involving young people, whether in schools or colleges, one must take into account the health and wellbeing of the young person as well as the facts and law that would ordinarily control the resolution if only adults were involved.

     You may recall that last year I was able to negotiate a severance package for a client in the investment banking industry when he ran into problems with a newly hired supervisor. As a result of our efforts, my client received a far better severance package than the employer initially offered. That helped him and his family to weather the months when he was seeking new employment. I’m pleased to say that he secured a new position with better conditions and pay not too long afterward. I’ve noted and shared with people in these situations that being forced out of a position is not necessarily evidence of poor performance or any fault of the employee, but often results just because there’s not the right chemistry between employer or supervisor and employee. And often, within six months or so, when the employee has found a new and better position, he or she can look back and realize that leaving the first position was the best thing that could have happened – assuming of course that there is adequate financial severance support for the time needed to secure the next position.

     As always, we continue to practice in a wide range of legal areas, including corporate, commercial and business law, trials and appeals, real estate issues, employment, discrimination, divorce, international and university law. If you have any questions about our areas of practice or about any legal matters where we can be of assistance to you or someone you know, please do not hesitate to call on me.

     Marc Redlich