A Matter of Impressions
The Frank and Jamie McCourt Divorce — and the Dodgers' Future — May Well Come Down to Indentations From Signatures
If Jamie's best argument were that she didn't understand what she was signing, she wouldn't have much of a case. Steve Susman, Frank's attorney, summed his client's position up this way: "I'm from Texas, and in Texas, a deal's a deal."
But here is where it helps to have the best lawyers money can buy.
There's an adage that cases are won and lost in discovery — the pretrial exchange of all relevant information. It's not the sexiest part of the job. There will never be a Law & Order: Document Production Unit. But it was critically important in this case.
Beginning in May, Jamie's lawyers — led by David Boies — began demanding the six original signed drafts of the contract. Bingham McCutchen, the firm that held the originals in its vault, refused, saying that photocopies had already been produced.
Boies & Co. kept demanding the opportunity to inspect the originals. In July, the two sides finally agreed to have two forensic examiners — one for Frank, one for Jamie — look over the originals.
The first three, which were signed in Massachusetts, were authentic. They even had the original staples. But on the second set of three, which Jamie signed in Massachusetts and Frank signed in California, there was something wrong with Exhibit A.
Exhibit A was a list of Frank's separate property, including the Dodgers. In each copy, it was two pages after the signature page. So if it were the original, it would have had indentations from the signatures. But the three California copies had no indentations.
This discovery set off a furious search within the offices of Bingham McCutchen. In the files of Larry Silverstein, the attorney who had drafted the document, were found three loose sheets. They were the original "California" Exhibit A pages, and they did have signature indentations.
And there was one other very important difference.
This Exhibit A excluded the Dodgers from Frank's separate property.
That would give Jamie a claim to the team. Is that what they actually intended? To protect the houses by putting them in Jamie's name but also to preserve her interest in the Dodgers upon divorce? Wasn't that the status quo?
Boies and his team had turned a dead-bang loser of a case into a much harder call.
A deal's a deal. But which deal?
The trial resumes on Sept. 20.
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