ETI Analysis and Testimony Basis for Second Largest Jury Award in California in 2009
In 2007 and 2008, Colin B. Weir, Senior Consultant at Economics and Technology, Inc., testified on behalf of a class of approximately 150,000 California consumers who had purchased a product called "Avacor" from Global Vision Products, Inc. The class asserted a false advertising claim against the corporation and several of its principals. In January 2008, an Alameda County, California jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff class, and awarded damages based upon the ETI testimony.
In 2009, the same plaintiff class went to trial again, this time seeking to pierce the corporate veil to impose individual liability against two shareholders of the corporation. ETI was asked once again to calculate the economic damages to the class, and Mr. Weir offered damages testimony at trial.
The work involved a statistical analysis of nearly 13,000 actual Avacor purchase records to determine the amount of the average purchase of the product. This involved the electronic capture of the purchase data from paper invoice records, calculating valid sample sizes for the population, taking multiple systematic random samples of purchase data, calculating the average purchase price, and validating the statistical methods employed. Weir estimated total damages to the class at $50.02-million.
During cross-examination, Mr. Weir successfully defended the statistical methods underlying the ETI calculations, and showed the results to be quite conservative. At the conclusion of the four-week trial, the jury relied upon the expert testimony of Mr. Weir and returned a $50-million verdict for the plaintiff class.
VerdictSearch, the nation’s leading publisher of verdict and settlement news and research, reported that the $50-million jury award in the Global Vision case was the second largest jury award in California in 2009, and among the Top-100 largest jury awards in the United States.
About ETI. Founded in 1972, Economics and Technology, Inc. is a leading research and consulting firm specializing in telecommunications regulation and policy, litigation support, taxation, service procurement, and negotiation. ETI serves a wide range of telecom industry stakeholders in the US and abroad, including telecommunications carriers, attorneys and their clients, consumer advocates, state and local governments, regulatory agencies, and large corporate, institutional and government purchasers of telecom services.
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In 2007 and 2008, Colin B. Weir, Senior Consultant at Economics and Technology, Inc., testified on behalf of a class of approximately 150,000 California consumers who had purchased a product called "Avacor" from Global Vision Products, Inc. The class asserted a false advertising claim against the corporation and several of its principals. In January 2008, an Alameda County, California jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff class, and awarded damages based upon the ETI testimony.