Exec Not Served with Subpoenas Gets $3M Consumer Judgment

Civil Procedure

Exec Not Served with Subpoenas Gets $3M Consumer Judgment

Posted Jun 19, 2008, 03:31 pm CST
By Martha Neil

The Securities and Exchange Commission thought Donald Lines had been served with witness subpoenas, since a process server said he had. But Lines said he wasn't, and the server, Boston-based Stokes & Levin, never showed up to testify at depositions last year in the Massachusetts state court consumer fraud case that Lines brought over the issue.

A Massachusetts judge awarded the Bermuda businessman $1 million earlier this month, reports the National Law Journal. But then the judge trebled it to $3 million, as provided for under Massachusetts consumer fraud law. When the SEC initially thought Lines was ignoring subpoenas that he had actually been served with, he wound up being stripped of several corporate director posts, the legal publication notes.

His winning case against Stokes & Levin included claims for "unfair or deceptive acts or practices under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, negligence, fraud, intentional or negligent infliction of emotional distress and interference with advantageous business relations, recounts the NLJ..

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