Los Angeles Times
Saturday, July 27, 1996
Jury Awards $107 Million to 2 Ex-Aerospace Employees
Courts: General Dynamics is found liable after failing to compensate
them for equity in subsidiary when it sold missile business to Hughes Aircraft.
By CHRIS KRAUL
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Two victims of Southern California's aerospace industry collapse received
some sweet solace Friday when a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury awarded
them $107.4 million in damages after finding that their former employer, General
Dynamics Corp.. was liable for fraud and breach of oral contract.
William Forti and Dolores Blanton, two longtime employees at the company's
missile plant in Pomona, were awarded $3.7 million each in compensatory damages
and $50 million each in punitive damages in the case, which was tried in the
court's Norwalk Division. General Dynamics, which sold the Pomona plant to
Hughes Aircraft in 1992, is expected to appeal the verdict.
Former General Dynamics Vice President Sterling Starr, who headed the Pomona
division, testified that no ownership promise was made to Forti and Blanton,
according to lead plaintiff attorney Don Howarth. But the jury believed the
testimony of five witnesses, including the plaintiffs, that oral promises were
made.
After three days of deliberations, the jury in Superior Court Judge Chris
Conway's courtroom handed down the compensatory damages award. The panel then
went back in deliberations and two hours later emerged with the punitive damage
award.
Forti was a business development executive; after being laid off by the
aerospace employer, he became a successful inventor. He and his son Mark sell a
one-ounce Frisbee-like plastic ring called an X-zylo that can be thrown the
length of two football fields.
Brian Bubb, part of the victorious legal team, said the toy has been a
"tremendous success" and that Wal-Mart recently agreed to sell the product in
its stores.
"He may be financially set, but I'm sure he takes great pride in the work he and
his son are doing in developing their own business," Bubb said.
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