Jury decides company
stole plans for Wide World of Sports complex NEW YORK
(CNNfn) - A Florida circuit court jury on Friday
ordered Walt Disney Co. to pay $240 million to two men
who claimed entertainment conglomerate stole their
idea for the Wide World of Sports complex, used by the
Atlanta Braves baseball team for spring
training.
The Orlando, Fla.,
jury found that Disney (DIS: Research, Estimates)
willfully and maliciously misappropriated the
plaintiffs' "trade secrets." The award was
significantly less than the $1.4 billion the
plaintiffs had asked for. But trial judge George
Sprinkle IV has the discretion of increasing the
damages.
Nicholas Stracick and
Edward Russell, the two entrepreneurs behind All Pro
Sports Camp, maintained that Disney pilfered their
design for its Wide World of Sports park, a 200-acre
property that opened at Orlando's Walt Disney World
resort in Orlando in 1997.
During the trial,
which began July 10, Stracick and Russell accused
Burbank, Calif.-based Disney of fraud, theft of trade
secrets, breaking an implied contract and breaching a
confidential relationship. The six-member jury, which
deliberated for 12 hours, accepted all the claims
except fraud.
"(The decision) says
to America that small companies can get justice," said
attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr., a member of O.J.
Simpson's famed defense team, who represented the
plaintiffs. "They had the idea, and you can't take
someone's idea in America, and that's what this
company did."
"We worked our butts
off," Stracick said. "Disney took advantage of it and
ran with it."
All Pro claimed 88
similarities between its plans and the Disney complex.
But Disney's attorneys said in-house designers planned
the park, and argued that the park is essentially
similar to existing sports centers and other Olympic
training centers.
"The Walt Disney
Company doesn't need to borrow anybody else's ideas,"
Lou Meisinger, general counsel for Disney, told
CNNfn.com. "It has its own good ideas."
He also took issue
with the manner with which the plaintiff's lawyers
appealed to the jury's perceived biases against
Disney, a $25 billion company that operates theme
parks around the globe, and is one of world's most
recognizable corporate names.
"They played the
David-versus-Goliath card about as well and
persistently as anything I've ever seen," he
added.
Meisinger told
CNNfn.com that the company would next file a motion to
have the decision set aside, citing a miscarriage of
justice. If denied, the company will appeal,
challenging what he said were prejudicial statements
in closing arguments and improper evidence.
"We're not knocked
out," he said. "The notion that we had to steal this
idea is utterly preposterous. This verdict will not
stand."
The two sides met
first in 1987
Judge Sprinkle
severely limited the scope of what jurors could
consider by adopting jury instructions that said the
architecture, site plan and business plan for the
sports complex were not copied from All Pro and could
not be considered.
Stracick, a retired
baseball umpire from Buffalo, N.Y., and Russell, an
architect from Fonthill, Ontario, testified they
pitched their idea for a sports complex to Disney
officials in the late 1980s.
Four years after
Disney officials rejected their plans in 1989, the
company announced it would build a $100 million
complex.
"There were some
meeting with them in 1987 in which there were some
discussion about sports camps," Meisinger said. "Then
many, many years later, Disney independently conceived
of the idea for the Wide World of Sports
Complex."
Jimmy Johnson Jr., a
dismissed alternate juror, said he would have decided
against Disney and awarded the full request of $1.4
billion in damages to teach the entertainment giant a
lesson.
Johnson questioned the
testimony of Disney executives, particularly architect
Wing Chao, who claimed they knew nothing of Stracick
and Russell's plans. Johnson said Disney Chairman and
CEO Michael Eisner appeared evasive in his videotaped
deposition played in the five-week trial.
"I found most of the
Disney executives to be less than forthcoming,"
Johnson said.
-- from staff and wire
reports
