Bowles and Verna Wins In Commercial Real Estate Litigation Case
The Bowles & Verna, LLP commercial and business litigation trial team of Richard T. Bowles and Kenneth B McKenzie won a defense verdict in a $2.4 million commercial real estate case on November 3, 2011 in San Francisco Superior Court.
It took the jury only twenty minutes to reach a unanimous verdict for Bowles & Verna clients Abol & Farrouk Hosseinioun after the two week trial.
The case was centered on a commercial building in the City of San Francisco that Sierra Industries LLC had purchased from the Hosseiniouns. Atop the building was a billboard structure. When the building was purchased by Sierra Industries, the Hosseiniouns, as part of the due diligence process, provided lease documents regarding the billboard to Sierra Industries, putting Sierra Industries on notice that the billboard tenant had done some work on the billboard, but that the Hosseiniouns had no knowledge of the extent of the work nor did the Hosseiniouns participate in the work being performed on the billboard. Further, the Purchase Agreement for the building stated that Sierra Industries was responsible to look into all permitting issues pertaining to the building, including the billboard.
Nine years after the purchase of the building from the Hosseiniouns, the City of San Francisco determined that the billboard had to be removed because it no longer conformed to City laws. Sierra Industries LLC filed a this case against the Hosseiniouns, claiming the Hosseiniouns concealed the illegality of the billboard and failed to disclose information about the billboard during the sale of the building. Sierra Industries argued that they lost over $2.4 million in income and monetary value to the building by being forced to remove the builboard.
At trial, the Bowles and Verna trial team of Richard T. Bowles and Kenneth B. McKenzie successfully defended against Sierra Industries' claims, and argued that the Hosseiniouns, as sellers of the building, had no duty to investigate issues related to the billboard, but, rather, only had to disclose to the buyers information that they were actually aware of. Conversely, they argued, the buyer, Sierra Industries, had a duty to perform due diligence on the disclosed information and Sierra Industries failed to do so.
The jury's unanimous verdict is another success for Bowles & Verna's Business Litigation and Real Estate groups.
For more information on Bowles & Verna's Commercial Litigation practice, or if you have a similar issue and would like legal advice, please contact Richard T. Bowles at rbowles@bowlesverna.com