Opinion ID: 6326325
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: apportionment ruling on remand

Text: Because “the parent company and one of two plaintiffs . . . ha[d] been stricken from the case,” we instructed the trial court to “hold a hearing to determine what portion of the damages should be allocated to . . . World Telecom Exchange Communications, LLC.” Sidya II, 2019 WL 3238643, at . On remand, the trial court held a hearing and determined that the portion of damages allocable to World Telecom was $1.332 million. That award, Sidya now argues, violated our appellate mandate because the trial court did not specifically allocate a percentage of the damages to World Telecom but rather calculated a whole new attribution of damages. Upon this subtle distinction between allocation and attribution, Sidya contends that we should vacate the trial court’s award in its entirety based upon the mandate rule. We decline to do so. In Virginia, an appellate mandate “is the directive of the appellate court certifying a judgment in a particular case to the court from which it was appealed” and thus “speaks only to that case.” Powell v. Commonwealth, 267 Va. 107, 128 (2004). The mandate controls “only ‘as to matters within its compass.’” Id. (quoting Sprague v. Ticonic Nat’l Bank, 307 U.S. 161, 168 (1939)). The mandate does not prohibit a trial court on remand “from acting on matters not constrained by the language of the mandate, construed in light of the appellate court’s opinion.” Id. While a trial court must obey “both the letter and spirit” of an appellate mandate, the mandate rule only precludes the trial court from considering issues that “the mandate laid at rest.” United States v. Bell, 5 F.3d 64, 66-67 (4th Cir. 1993) (citations omitted). Best understood, the rule is “merely a ‘specific application of the law of the case doctrine,’” which has the effect of foreclosing “relitigation of issues expressly or impliedly decided by the appellate court.” Powell, 267 Va. at 128 (citation omitted). 7 Before applying these background principles, we first question Sidya’s view of the trial court’s damages ruling on remand. At the 2015 trial, the jury returned a $2.682 million verdict for compensatory damages. It was a general verdict unaccompanied by special interrogatories. The jury awarded a single sum to two plaintiffs who were each asserting identical claims. On remand, the trial court awarded $1.332 million to one plaintiff, which was a “portion” of the original $2.682 million jury verdict against both plaintiffs, see Sidya II, 2019 WL 3238643, at . Whatever linguistic distinctions exist between “allocating” and “attributing,” nothing in our Sidya II order (incorporated by reference in the mandate) dictated the precise manner in which the trial court was obligated to apportion the damages. For this reason, the trial court did not ignore or otherwise violate the Sidya II mandate. Perhaps so, Sidya argues, but the trial court had no evidentiary basis for allocating $1.332 million of the original jury verdict to World Telecom. One difficulty with this argument is that no one can say with confidence what the jurors would have done on this issue. Neither side of this case asked the trial court to instruct the jury to allocate damages between the two plaintiffs, nor did the parties submit a detailed verdict form or request special interrogatories on the damages-allocation issue. In the first appeal in this case, Sidya I, neither side requested a remand for a new jury trial. Again, in Sidya II, both sides requested for this Court to enter final judgment on their behalf, and neither side insisted on a new jury trial limited to the question of damages. 2 As a result, our Sidya II mandate used the most efficient method left for bringing this case to 2 See Appellant’s Br. (Sidya II) at 40; Appellee’s Br. (Sidya II) at 40. In oral arguments for Sidya II, World Telecom acknowledged that we could remand the case for the trial court to either remit the damages or order a new jury trial on the apportionment of damages. See Oral Argument Audio (Sidya II) at 7:40 to 8:40. 8 closure — a remand with instructions to the trial court to apportion damages. In doing so, we vested the trial court with the same factfinding discretion the jury had previously possessed (subject only to the restraints of the existing evidentiary record) and directed the court to answer a question the jury was never asked. This brings us to Sidya’s contest of the trial court’s apportionment decision, which Sidya claims relied upon a “completely different approach” than the one World Telecom presented to the jury and later “abandoned.” See Appellant’s Br. at 34. 3 In support of his argument, Sidya asserts that World Telecom’s expert at the jury trial calculated damages using an income-based approach to value the consolidated business. The trial court’s post-remand award, Sidya contends, calculated damages using an asset-based approach. Our review of the record, however, does not support this assertion. At trial, World Telecom’s damages expert calculated the value of the combined companies in December 2010 (before Sidya’s tortious acts) and subtracted from that the value of the remaining assets in December 2011, which was the only remaining value after Sidya’s tortious acts. The expert evaluated the companies as of December 2010 using a combination of the income approach and market approach. See Trial Tr. (Aug. 17, 2015) at 123-24, 129. In making these determinations, the expert evaluated World Telecom and its parent company jointly, as if they were one enterprise, and did not seek to divide the damages between them. See id. at 178-79. 3 One particularly unfair aspect of this change of strategy, Sidya contends, was World Telecom’s reliance in the trial court on deposition testimony not presented to the jury at the 2015 trial. The record reflects, however, that the trial court emphasized its intent to rely only on evidence previously presented to the jury. See, e.g., J.A. at 156-57. Additionally, the deposition testimony identified by Sidya was the $1.8 million offer made for World Telecom, which was also testified to at trial by both World Telecom’s owner and by the damages expert. See Trial Tr. (Aug. 11, 2015) at 26; Trial Tr. (Aug. 17, 2015) at 150. 9 On remand, the trial court also determined damages by finding the value of World Telecom as of December 2010 and subtracting from that the value of its remaining assets as of December 2011. In determining the initial value of World Telecom, the trial court adopted what World Telecom called a “lowball number” based upon a purchase offer that Sidya had made for the company in January 2011. Id. at 162. 4 Sidya argues that this purchase offer was for both companies, but the evidentiary record supports the trial court’s determination that this offer represented the value of World Telecom alone. At the time of the offer, Sidya and Barmawi had already established a parent company in Dubai — they needed only the subsidiary. World Telecom, after all, operated the business, employed all but one of the company’s officers and employees, and owned the “OrcaWave” servers and the trade secrets contained therein. See J.A. at 179-80; Trial Tr. (Aug. 10, 2015) at 132-36; Trial Tr. (Aug. 17, 2015) at 1415. In contrast, World Telecom’s Dubai parent company had at most two employees. The parent company’s principal contribution to the joint business plan was to provide financing, banking services, and tax benefits for income realized in Dubai. After deducting World Telecom’s remaining assets, the trial court arrived at the $1.332 million allocation of damages to World Telecom — which, as it turns out, is close to half of the $2.682 million in damages awarded by the jury to both World Telecom and its Dubai parent company. Given the evidentiary discretion available to the trial court, sitting as factfinder on remand, we affirm the court’s damages-allocation decision.