The law office of renowned Claremont trial attorney Herbert Hafif is on a roll, claiming victory in a series of high-profile judgments and settlements totaling more than $120 million during the past year, including a $54.4 million hit on the William Lyon Co.
The practice also participated with other firms in a class action suit againt a major insurance company that led to a nearly $1 billion settlement.
But Hafif, one of the most successful trial attorneys in the U.S., is perhaps proudest about his most recent high-profile case, in which he helped two of his associates, including his son Greg, win a judgment against The Walt Disney Co.
The Disney decision, unlike other recent cases, earned court fees but no judgment money for the firm. The case stemmed from allegations that a fellow executive illegally coerced Disney Senior Vice President Robert Jahn to sign over $2.8 million in benefits shortly before Jahn’s death from AIDS in 1994.
Days before he died, Jahn,who allegedly admitted taking kickbacks while supervising the creation of movie previews,agreed to waive his benefits to avoid the company taking legal action against him.
A federal jury in Los Angeles ruled in April that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that Jahn accepted payoffs while on the job, and that Disney had no right to take away his benefits.
Both Hafifs, who pride themselves on taking cases thought by many to be unwinnable, called the Disney case a “labor of love” because it represented something other than a large cash payment for the firm.
“It was one of those cases where we decided to ignore the bucks and go and do the right thing,” Herbert Hafif (pronounced “half”) said. “All of that money will go to (Jahn’s) church. All we’ll get is what the judge decides we should be paid.”
The case presented a difficult legal challenge, since the Hafifs and their associate, Larry Sackey, were representing a deceased client and had no witnesses to his alleged confession of improprieties.
“We had to tell our story through other people, and most of them were Disney employees,” Greg Hafif said. “That wasn’t easy to do.”
In the case against the Newport Beach-based William Lyon Co., the Hafif firm represented John Markley, a former Lyon employee who charged that Chairman William Lyon tried to force him to sell his interest in the company’s nationwide apartment business to help the company pay some bank loans. When Markley wouldn’t cooperate, Lyon fired him, Hafif’s firm argued.
That judgment, which the Hafifs said will be appealed, is probably the largest compensatory damage verdict ever awarded to an individual by an Orange County jury, Herbert Hafif said.
Additionally, Hafif’s firm participated with other national law firms in a class-action case against Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. in New York. The case, which stemmed from improper rate increases, was settled in January and led to nearly $1 billion in settlement payments, Sackey said.
Other recent noteworthy Hafif victories include:
n A settlement last month of $1 million in punitive damages, $425,000 in compensatory damages and $1.1 million in legal fees on behalf of Novaquest, an El Segundo computer company. Jurors ruled that En Pointe, a rival computer company also based in El Segundo, improperly interfered with Novaquest’s business.
n A $34 million judgment in March on behalf of the U.S. government against Jacobs Engineering Inc. of Pasadena, stemming from falsified lease payments made by the company.
n A $33.2 million settlement in the spring of 1999 in a case alleging that American General Insurance Co. in Houston defrauded its policyholders.
The elder Hafif is virtually a legend among U.S. trial attorneys. By the end of the 1970s, he had won about 13% of all of the multimillion-dollar settlements ever awarded by U.S. juries. Ten years later, Forbes magazine estimated he was the second-wealthiest trial lawyer in the country, with an annual income of $40 million.
Hafif, who made his first million in various business enterprises by the time he finished law school at the University of Southern California, said the firm has had similar runs of success in the past.
“We had a surge,” said Hafif, who typically downplays his courtroom success and gives much of his earnings to charity. “It’s not that unusual, because cases get (delayed) and rescheduled, and they can happen all at once.”
Markley, who is now working for Ford Motor Co., said Hafif did a remarkable job during his trial.
“I’ve never seen anything like him,” Markley said. “He has a photographic memory; he literally remembers everything.
“My case was a good one,” Markley added. “I just needed someone to get it in front of a jury for me.” n
Ascenzi is a staff reporter for the Business Press, Inland Empire.
