Grimsley, Hughes, Hacker and Taylor win major trial victory for Tyco

Sean Grimsley and John Hughes, along with Kat Hacker and Dan Taylor, recently hit it out of the park in a damages trial for Tyco.  A prior jury found that a former Tyco subsidiary, Sonitrol, had willfully and wantonly breached its burglar-alarm monitoring contract in 2002 by failing to detect three burglars who broke into plaintiff Core-Mark’s warehouse, looted it for hours and then lit fires that ultimately destroyed the warehouse.  Bartlit Beck took over the case shortly before trial after the Court of Appeals had remanded for a new trial on damages only.  At trial, plaintiffs sought over $23 million in damages, claiming over $50 million with pre-judgment interest.  Despite the fact that the jury in the previous trial had given plaintiffs all damages they asked for and despite the fact that the Court precluded Sonitrol from calling a damages expert, the jury in the re-trial awarded plaintiffs only $2.75 million in theft-related damages, the damages number Sonitrol sponsored.  The jury awarded no fire-related damages.  It was a major victory for Tyco and the Bartlit Beck team.