Opinion ID: 1926086
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Phase One: Breezevale v. Firestone

Text: In October 1989, Breezevale hired GDC to investigate and pursue several potential claims against Firestone arising from business dealings involving Iraq and Nigeria. In 1990, on GDC's advice, Breezevale brought suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, [3] seeking damages of approximately $20,000,000. Its first two sets of claims alleged that Firestone had committed breach of contract and fraud in its sale of tires to Iraq in 1988 and 1989 while it had an exclusive distributorship agreement with Breezevale (1988 Iraq claim and 1989 Iraq claim respectively). Its third claim alleged that Firestone had breached a promise to develop a manufacturing plant in Nigeria with Breezevale (Nigeria claim). There is no dispute that Ohio law governed the action. Discovery began in preparation for trial. At some point in mid-1991, Firestone offered to settle the case by paying Breezevale $3,500,000 and entering into a five-year distribution agreement for Nigeria, but Breezevale rejected the offer on GDC's advice. Discovery continued accordingly, including the scheduling of a particular Breezevale employee for deposition on October 14, 1991. On the night of October 13, however, a legal bomb dropped when that employee revealed to a GDC associate attorney that she planned to testify during her deposition that she had personally forged certain documents produced to Firestone, specifically offer letters dated late 1987 pertaining to the sale of tires to Iraq, at the direction of and with the participation of a certain Breezevale executive. The following morning, just before the deposition, the GDC associate took the Breezevale employee to the office of a GDC partner to discuss the situation and ask how to proceed. The partner decided that the deposition should go forward without immediately notifying Breezevale, even though someone from Breezevale actually phoned during the meeting. However, after uneventful morning testimony, the partner and the associate did go to Breezevale's offices during the lunch break and advise a different Breezevale executive of the impending testimony. The executive immediately asserted that the employee was lying and asked the partner to delay the deposition until GDC could investigate the allegations. The partner refused, and the employee proceeded to give her damaging testimony that afternoon. On a subsequent day, she also retrieved from her home certain corroborating evidence of the forgeries. This evidence was made part of the deposition record. Firestone's attorneys immediately began drafting a motion to dismiss all of Breezevale's claims with prejudice as a sanction for fraud and misconduct. Upon threat of imminent filing of the motion, and with GDC's advice, Breezevale settled with Firestone for $100,000.