On August 29, commercial litigator Robert C. Rodriguez secured a judgment in favor of the firm’s long-time individual client following a bench trial in Santa Clara Superior Court. The judgment concludes two years of hard-fought litigation and secures a complete victory for the firm’s client.
Gordon & Rees' client is a wealthy businessman who periodically invests in a variety of start-up ventures. The fraud and breach of contract litigation stemmed from an alleged promise by the firm’s client to invest $100,000 in a now defunct technology company in Silicon Valley. At trial, Rodriguez was able to demonstrate that there could be no detrimental reliance on the part of the plaintiffs, a father and son, because they had invested all of their funds prior to Gordon & Rees client’s purported promise to invest. Moreover, while the firm’s client did at one time consider investing in the company, he subsequently changed his mind and the individual plaintiffs lacked standing to sue him for breach of contract (the company was not a named plaintiff).
Rodriguez was pleased to deliver this result for our client, who all along insisted the plaintiffs were upset that they invested their money in a failed enterprise and now sought to blame others for their poor business decisions.
Rodriguez is part of Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani's commercial litigation and environmental/toxic tort practice groups. This result is the second trial victory in two months for him, as he was second chair on a trial team that recently obtained a defense verdict following a seven-week jury trial in an asbestos matter, venued in Los Angeles County.