sammy
09-19-2007, 07:01 AM
This article is from http://www.autographalert.com/news.html (http://www.autographalert.com/news.html)
MastroNet Press Release
What Doug Allen Doesn't Tell You!
The following is a Press Release sent out by Doug Allen in reference to the Mastro/Daniels Law Suit.
The paragraphs in italics is what he forgot to mention.
"Dear Customer:
As a firm, we have always preferred to handle disputes with professionalism and discretion, even in the infrequent occasion that it is necessary to resolve them in court. Recently, we had what became a very public dispute with a former customer, autograph dealer Bill Daniels. Due to the public nature of this dispute, a number of you have asked about the legitimacy of his claims. Last week, the Honorable Matthew C. Kincaid from the Boone (Indiana) Superior Court issued a 46-page ruling. We thought it appropriate to communicate his findings, and resolution of this dispute, to our customers. Following is a synopsis of the judgment that the Court issued."
Mastro's report and the actual ruling have little in common. Mastro misrepresented a lot and got caught. They got punished, not as badly as they could have been, but Mastro still lost the case. They will misrepresent the judgement also in their statement as they misrepresented the lot in question. The Court found that Daniels' statements that Mastro Auctions defrauded him, and conspired with PSA/DNA to do so, were defamatory.
The Court also found that Daniels "affirmatively sought republication of defamatory statements in national media outlets such as Barron's and New York Daily News." In particular, the Court characterized Daniels' conduct as "picayune, foolish, errant, resultant from a lack of understanding of his rights to publicly declare his complaints outside of a judicial proceeding and overzealous." As a result, the court held Daniels liable for damages to Mastro Auctions' reputation in the amount of $1,000.
Yes, Daniels spoke about the case before trial. No argument here. Sum and substance of filings do not leave the courthouse by way of either party until after adjudication.
The sentence before that in the ruling (p44) that Daniels statements to the press were not " malicious, fraudulent, grossly negligent or oppressive". Daniels was fined for opening his mouth, not for what came out of it, and fined accordingly.
The Court found that the proposed experts Daniels produced at trial – Richard Simon and Stephen Koschal (whom Daniels had testify that Mastro Auctions sold him forgeries) – were not qualified to render expert opinions. In particular, the Court found that Simon had undergone a "wholesale demolition in his deposition" and that Koschal was "not qualified to render an opinion on anything having to do with autographs." Simon and Koschal were offered as witnesses after five other proposed experts "all refused to testify on [Daniels'] behalf."
No, actually the finding of the Court was in fact that Simon and Koschal failed to meet a burden of proof sufficient to have their testimony accepted.
Koschal failed in this burden by adding " nothing but a bottom line" according to the Judge, which fails to meet a standard of judicial process cited on p.36. He testified in detail for one day and a half on video that SOME signatures could not be what they were purported to be.
Koschal used exemplars from the original lot carefully explaining how items of the same celebrity were signed by different hands. But to claim constructive fraud against Mastro, as was the charge, the entire lot would need be scrutinized as a point of law. Damages can't be awarded as such because we do not know how many of the items in the lot were or were not genuine is essentially how it would work.
Daniels attorney also failed to update the court on sum and substance of witness testimony which is neither Koschal's nor Simon's burden to bear. Their testimony would have been excepted in any case as a sanction irrespective of its value. After their testimony, they left the jurisdiction and were not available to be recalled ( p 40) (nor were they requested to be called, both Koschal and Simon could have easily returned if requested by Mastro's attorney or the judge). As a result their testimony is disallowed as a point of LAW not a point of expertise.
Simon fails because his testimony falls " outside the scope of his knowledge" according to p 36 of the ruling. This is based on the fact that Simon had never been paid to " grade" signatures nor attended a " grading school" in the PSA grading style. Who has?
Does one of these institutions exist ? Where is it's handbook or course of study ? PSA makes you compare apples to oranges from a legal point and then says " You don't do it our way, so you can't say what a 5 , 7 or 9 is . Next, both Simon and Koschal are considered "non-experts" essentially because they are not using the PSA grading system and in this narrow scope that is correct, thus they can't reliably testify to how PSA slabs and numbers items. So, for this purpose, yes both are " unqualified" to discuss autographs, as would be the Curator at the Library of Congress if we narrowed it down to this fine point.
The Court sanctioned Daniels for his conduct of the litigation during discovery, specifically citing Daniels' failure to disclose relevant documents timely and to "represent his claimed harm accurately." As a result, Daniels was fined $2,000.
This is also true, as Daniels had sold items from the lot and needed to get them back into the corpus of the lot. He also failed, as we discussed earlier, to update the court on testimonial subjects from experts, a part of this sanction.
The Court found that Daniels presented "no evidence" of fraud and that Daniels' claims that Mastro Auctions defrauded him—and conspired with PSA/DNA to do so--were "false." The Court entered judgment against Daniels on those claims and awarded no damages.
Fraud is difficult to prove in court and let's say the charge was downgraded to " Breach of Contract" in a similar way that criminal charges are reduced from Murder1 to manslaughter . The victim is still just as dead, someone did it, they did it without meeting the evidentiary standard of Murder1.
Lost in here are many issues. One is that the consigner of this lot is Mr Zach Rullo. Yes the same Zach Rullo that is employed by PSA/DNA as an authenticator. Mr. Rullo consigned this privately, not as a member of PSA which is perfectly legal, but it does lend an air of impartiality, not legally but perceptually, to the authentications as PSA, the company who employs Mr Rullo, authenticated this material. Daniels claimed that this constituted fraud and it legally does not, according to Indiana precedent, but it does look like George Steinbrenner officiating at Home Plate during a Yankee game.
Daniels was given $608.85 because a small portion of the 2,012 photos Daniels purchased in December 2004 were not as described in the lot description. Mastro Auctions offered to replace those photos shortly after the auction, but Daniels refused.
" A small portion" of the photos at Mastro had descriptions where someone played fast and loose with the description as compared to the actual items in the lot. Some were not color, some were not the right size etc. It was 130 actually that were not correct or about 6% of the overall lot.
The only negative of the judgment was that an additional award to Daniels was made on the basis that our catalog stated "LOA from James Spence & Steve Grad / PSA DNA," but Steve Grad was the only one to physically sign the LOA on behalf of the PSA/DNA team. Our attorneys will ask the judge to reconsider that portion of the ruling.
The " only negative" is that Mastro was found guilty of a breach of warranty and resulting cases are cited by the Judge that Mastro is not relieved of it's duty to represent faithfully the certification it provides. This is found on pages 23 & 24 of the ruling and are clear. Daniels was awarded $ 8,944 as a result of the breach as described by the Judge. Basically Mastro completely misrepresented the sum and substance of the authenticity letters it would provide in the catalog when the winning bidder took possession of said lot. That is the cause for the breach of warranty, and the subsequent damages were awarded accordingly on p 26 of the ruling.
Overall, Mastro Auctions is very happy with this result. Although it is unfortunate that this dispute had to go all the way to trial, we are pleased that the judge sent what we believe to be a resounding message against Mr. Daniels' exaggerated claims and conduct of his lawsuit. Here is the bottom line- Mastro Auctions misrepresented in numerous ways the corpus of a lot( Specifically lot 2322) to their buying public. They said that all were 8" x 10" color photos with dual-signed certificates of authenticity in describing this. The fact of the matter is that :
1) Not all were color
2) Not all were 8" x 10"
3) LOAs were single, not double, signed.
Mastro was slip-shod in the extremis in their description of many items, as many did not meet the description set forth in the catalog in at least one constructive way. Thus Daniels prevailed on his Warranty claim. To prevail on the fraud issue, he would need concrete proof that Mastro, with or without PSAs help intentionally defrauded him, as opposed to a printing error, a slip of the pen etc. This would constitute a paper trail between Mastro employees etc or some special treatment of Daniels to get him to buy the lot.
Is Mastro happy; of course, the outcome could have been much worse. They failed to provide adequate warranty to the tune of almost 45% of the value of this lot ( 9,000 award vs 20,000 selling price) as it stands.
Also included in the decision is a finding of fact that Mastro HAS taken material back as returns from Daniels in the past, calling into question their ALL SALES FINAL idea.
The Boone County Courthouse has a full copy of he filing and is cause # 06D01-0502 -PL- 0060 should you care to look at the entire finding.
What was not addressed by Doug Allen's Press Release was that both Simon and Koschal never met the judge. They were never in his court room. Their testimony's were held in an attorney's office and their depositions were video taped. Bidding records for this lot were not available. Opening bid was $900. Mastro personnel could not produce company records of who the underbidders were. Somehow the bid went from $900 to $19,000.
PSA/DNA authenticated 56,000+ autographs in 48 man hours. They charged Mastro Auctions $7,000 for this service.
Zack Rullo in deposition was shown 9 photos from the lot he consigned. He could only identify 2 players.
Many of the photographs in the lot had dates printed on the back. Some of the dates were just two weeks before the lot was to be submitted to the auction house.
In deposition Rullo admitted that he was the one who authenticated the lot for PSA/DNA.
Sincerely,
Doug Allen
President
Mastro Auctions
MastroNet Press Release
What Doug Allen Doesn't Tell You!
The following is a Press Release sent out by Doug Allen in reference to the Mastro/Daniels Law Suit.
The paragraphs in italics is what he forgot to mention.
"Dear Customer:
As a firm, we have always preferred to handle disputes with professionalism and discretion, even in the infrequent occasion that it is necessary to resolve them in court. Recently, we had what became a very public dispute with a former customer, autograph dealer Bill Daniels. Due to the public nature of this dispute, a number of you have asked about the legitimacy of his claims. Last week, the Honorable Matthew C. Kincaid from the Boone (Indiana) Superior Court issued a 46-page ruling. We thought it appropriate to communicate his findings, and resolution of this dispute, to our customers. Following is a synopsis of the judgment that the Court issued."
Mastro's report and the actual ruling have little in common. Mastro misrepresented a lot and got caught. They got punished, not as badly as they could have been, but Mastro still lost the case. They will misrepresent the judgement also in their statement as they misrepresented the lot in question. The Court found that Daniels' statements that Mastro Auctions defrauded him, and conspired with PSA/DNA to do so, were defamatory.
The Court also found that Daniels "affirmatively sought republication of defamatory statements in national media outlets such as Barron's and New York Daily News." In particular, the Court characterized Daniels' conduct as "picayune, foolish, errant, resultant from a lack of understanding of his rights to publicly declare his complaints outside of a judicial proceeding and overzealous." As a result, the court held Daniels liable for damages to Mastro Auctions' reputation in the amount of $1,000.
Yes, Daniels spoke about the case before trial. No argument here. Sum and substance of filings do not leave the courthouse by way of either party until after adjudication.
The sentence before that in the ruling (p44) that Daniels statements to the press were not " malicious, fraudulent, grossly negligent or oppressive". Daniels was fined for opening his mouth, not for what came out of it, and fined accordingly.
The Court found that the proposed experts Daniels produced at trial – Richard Simon and Stephen Koschal (whom Daniels had testify that Mastro Auctions sold him forgeries) – were not qualified to render expert opinions. In particular, the Court found that Simon had undergone a "wholesale demolition in his deposition" and that Koschal was "not qualified to render an opinion on anything having to do with autographs." Simon and Koschal were offered as witnesses after five other proposed experts "all refused to testify on [Daniels'] behalf."
No, actually the finding of the Court was in fact that Simon and Koschal failed to meet a burden of proof sufficient to have their testimony accepted.
Koschal failed in this burden by adding " nothing but a bottom line" according to the Judge, which fails to meet a standard of judicial process cited on p.36. He testified in detail for one day and a half on video that SOME signatures could not be what they were purported to be.
Koschal used exemplars from the original lot carefully explaining how items of the same celebrity were signed by different hands. But to claim constructive fraud against Mastro, as was the charge, the entire lot would need be scrutinized as a point of law. Damages can't be awarded as such because we do not know how many of the items in the lot were or were not genuine is essentially how it would work.
Daniels attorney also failed to update the court on sum and substance of witness testimony which is neither Koschal's nor Simon's burden to bear. Their testimony would have been excepted in any case as a sanction irrespective of its value. After their testimony, they left the jurisdiction and were not available to be recalled ( p 40) (nor were they requested to be called, both Koschal and Simon could have easily returned if requested by Mastro's attorney or the judge). As a result their testimony is disallowed as a point of LAW not a point of expertise.
Simon fails because his testimony falls " outside the scope of his knowledge" according to p 36 of the ruling. This is based on the fact that Simon had never been paid to " grade" signatures nor attended a " grading school" in the PSA grading style. Who has?
Does one of these institutions exist ? Where is it's handbook or course of study ? PSA makes you compare apples to oranges from a legal point and then says " You don't do it our way, so you can't say what a 5 , 7 or 9 is . Next, both Simon and Koschal are considered "non-experts" essentially because they are not using the PSA grading system and in this narrow scope that is correct, thus they can't reliably testify to how PSA slabs and numbers items. So, for this purpose, yes both are " unqualified" to discuss autographs, as would be the Curator at the Library of Congress if we narrowed it down to this fine point.
The Court sanctioned Daniels for his conduct of the litigation during discovery, specifically citing Daniels' failure to disclose relevant documents timely and to "represent his claimed harm accurately." As a result, Daniels was fined $2,000.
This is also true, as Daniels had sold items from the lot and needed to get them back into the corpus of the lot. He also failed, as we discussed earlier, to update the court on testimonial subjects from experts, a part of this sanction.
The Court found that Daniels presented "no evidence" of fraud and that Daniels' claims that Mastro Auctions defrauded him—and conspired with PSA/DNA to do so--were "false." The Court entered judgment against Daniels on those claims and awarded no damages.
Fraud is difficult to prove in court and let's say the charge was downgraded to " Breach of Contract" in a similar way that criminal charges are reduced from Murder1 to manslaughter . The victim is still just as dead, someone did it, they did it without meeting the evidentiary standard of Murder1.
Lost in here are many issues. One is that the consigner of this lot is Mr Zach Rullo. Yes the same Zach Rullo that is employed by PSA/DNA as an authenticator. Mr. Rullo consigned this privately, not as a member of PSA which is perfectly legal, but it does lend an air of impartiality, not legally but perceptually, to the authentications as PSA, the company who employs Mr Rullo, authenticated this material. Daniels claimed that this constituted fraud and it legally does not, according to Indiana precedent, but it does look like George Steinbrenner officiating at Home Plate during a Yankee game.
Daniels was given $608.85 because a small portion of the 2,012 photos Daniels purchased in December 2004 were not as described in the lot description. Mastro Auctions offered to replace those photos shortly after the auction, but Daniels refused.
" A small portion" of the photos at Mastro had descriptions where someone played fast and loose with the description as compared to the actual items in the lot. Some were not color, some were not the right size etc. It was 130 actually that were not correct or about 6% of the overall lot.
The only negative of the judgment was that an additional award to Daniels was made on the basis that our catalog stated "LOA from James Spence & Steve Grad / PSA DNA," but Steve Grad was the only one to physically sign the LOA on behalf of the PSA/DNA team. Our attorneys will ask the judge to reconsider that portion of the ruling.
The " only negative" is that Mastro was found guilty of a breach of warranty and resulting cases are cited by the Judge that Mastro is not relieved of it's duty to represent faithfully the certification it provides. This is found on pages 23 & 24 of the ruling and are clear. Daniels was awarded $ 8,944 as a result of the breach as described by the Judge. Basically Mastro completely misrepresented the sum and substance of the authenticity letters it would provide in the catalog when the winning bidder took possession of said lot. That is the cause for the breach of warranty, and the subsequent damages were awarded accordingly on p 26 of the ruling.
Overall, Mastro Auctions is very happy with this result. Although it is unfortunate that this dispute had to go all the way to trial, we are pleased that the judge sent what we believe to be a resounding message against Mr. Daniels' exaggerated claims and conduct of his lawsuit. Here is the bottom line- Mastro Auctions misrepresented in numerous ways the corpus of a lot( Specifically lot 2322) to their buying public. They said that all were 8" x 10" color photos with dual-signed certificates of authenticity in describing this. The fact of the matter is that :
1) Not all were color
2) Not all were 8" x 10"
3) LOAs were single, not double, signed.
Mastro was slip-shod in the extremis in their description of many items, as many did not meet the description set forth in the catalog in at least one constructive way. Thus Daniels prevailed on his Warranty claim. To prevail on the fraud issue, he would need concrete proof that Mastro, with or without PSAs help intentionally defrauded him, as opposed to a printing error, a slip of the pen etc. This would constitute a paper trail between Mastro employees etc or some special treatment of Daniels to get him to buy the lot.
Is Mastro happy; of course, the outcome could have been much worse. They failed to provide adequate warranty to the tune of almost 45% of the value of this lot ( 9,000 award vs 20,000 selling price) as it stands.
Also included in the decision is a finding of fact that Mastro HAS taken material back as returns from Daniels in the past, calling into question their ALL SALES FINAL idea.
The Boone County Courthouse has a full copy of he filing and is cause # 06D01-0502 -PL- 0060 should you care to look at the entire finding.
What was not addressed by Doug Allen's Press Release was that both Simon and Koschal never met the judge. They were never in his court room. Their testimony's were held in an attorney's office and their depositions were video taped. Bidding records for this lot were not available. Opening bid was $900. Mastro personnel could not produce company records of who the underbidders were. Somehow the bid went from $900 to $19,000.
PSA/DNA authenticated 56,000+ autographs in 48 man hours. They charged Mastro Auctions $7,000 for this service.
Zack Rullo in deposition was shown 9 photos from the lot he consigned. He could only identify 2 players.
Many of the photographs in the lot had dates printed on the back. Some of the dates were just two weeks before the lot was to be submitted to the auction house.
In deposition Rullo admitted that he was the one who authenticated the lot for PSA/DNA.
Sincerely,
Doug Allen
President
Mastro Auctions