Bank of the West filed a breach of guaranty claim against Eric and Craig Sterling arising out of the foreclosure of Esterlina, a family-owned winery located in Healdsburg, California.  The Sterlings filed a cross-complaint for lending discrimination and disparate treatment in violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and the Unruh Civil Rights Act, and also asserted affirmative defenses for fraudulent concealment and misrepresentation, in connection with loans made to the Sterlings by Bank of the West and the bank’s refusal to renegotiate the loans despite having done so for other borrowers.  DJLG took over representation of the Sterlings in April 2017, and, through discovery, uncovered significant new evidence supporting the Sterlings’ claims.

DJLG represents Presidio Partners and TPC in a dispute with another partner, Venustus, over the development and management of the Las Alocbas hotel in St. Helena, California.

This matter is set to be filed in Superior Court in San Francisco with a companion arbitration in San Francisco.

The plaintiff developed a mechanized game chair for use with video games and sued Sony for patent infringement. The parties had previously reached a settlement in an earlier case. The plaintiff claimed the earlier agreement was procured by fraud. Mr. Johnson’s team successfully deployed a dual strategy of enforcing the prior agreement and defending on the basis that the patents were both not infringed and invalid. After a successful motion for summary judgment the case settled for a nominal sum.

BTG, a British company, was sued by an inventor for breach of contract for failure to pay royalties in state court by an inventor claiming royalties under patents covering nonvolatile memory devices. The dispute turned on the interpretation of the license term. After a two­day motion in limine hearing in which the court ruled for BTG on all of the major issues, the case settled on the eve of trial for a nominal sum.

Starsight sued Scientific Atlanta for breach of contract and theft of video guide technology. The matter was arbitrated and the decision found a breach and awarded general and punitive damages.