The mission of the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County is to provide high-quality legal services in order to ensure that low-income persons and seniors have access to the civil justice system in times of crisis and to secure safe, habitable shelter, adequate income and protection from domestic violence and elder abuse.

Noël and her firm have long been supporters of the Legal Aid Foundation. “We know that in order to fulfill its mission, the Legal Aid Foundation requires substantial funding from outside sources, and we are happy to be part of that,” said Noël. “By joining the board of directors, I hope to be able to further promote the necessary work of this wonderful organization.”

Noël represents plaintiffs in lender liability matters, complex business litigation, class actions and catastrophic personal injury cases. Noël has co-tried most of the firm’s largest cases, and has obtained jury verdicts and settlements in excess of $200 million on behalf of her clients. In 2011, she was named one of the “Top 75 Women Litigators” in California by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals, and a Southern California Super Lawyer in 2012.

Joel Berman, Attorney, Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell (moderator)

Elizabeth Khachigian, Senior Vice President and Assistant General Counsel, Comerica Bank

Thomas Robins, Chief Supervising Trial Attorney, Frandzel Robins Bloom Csato

Seth Moldoff, SVP Division Manager Credit Resolution Group, Wells Fargo

For more information on the conference go to SAMA Conference.

“Moelleken had plenty of opportunity to show he could be a reliable panel member,” says A. Barry Cappello, managing partner of the Santa Barbara law firm of Cappello & Noël who represented the four on-call emergency room neurosurgeons (Dr. Thomas Jones, Dr. Scott Conner, Dr. Richard Chung and Dr. Alois Zauner with Santa Barbara Neurosurgery Associates). “He was given a chance to serve on the panel in 2000 but proved unreliable. Two independent panels of doctors convened by the hospital came to the conclusion that he should not be added.”

Representing Cottage Hospital during trial was Jeffrey LeVee, partner with the Los Angeles office of Jones Day. Evidence and testimony were presented by Cappello and LeVee that showed Moelleken was not harmed financially by Cottage Hospital’s decision, with Moelleken making about $11 million a year from his orthopedic clinics and a surgical center. “Moelleken makes more than the surgeons he was suing,” says Cappello. “The jury didn’t buy that he suffered financially. This was a case of someone who tried to use the legal system to bully others when he didn’t get his way.”

Cappello sees this case as having an impact on hospitals throughout the country. “If Moelleken had won,” says Cappello, “a doctor could sue every time a hospital makes a decision that benefits a patient but doesn’t financially benefit the doctor. The decision on who should be included on a hospital emergency call panel should be made by doctors independent of the hospital, as was in this case, with patient health as the deciding factor. A doctor’s ego or greed should not play a role.”

The jury voted nine to three to reject the claim that Cottage Hospital had engaged in anti-trust conspiratory behavior injurious to Moelleken. The jury also voted to reject the claims against the four surgeons by the same or greater numbers.

Jury sides with defendants, deciding there was no conspiracy or basis for damages

A jury denied a spinal surgeon’s antitrust claim against Cottage Health System and a group of local neurosurgeons on Friday, ending a seven-week civil trial in Santa Barbara County Superior Court.

Dr. Alan Moelleken claimed that Cottage and the doctors who formed Neurosurgical Associates conspired to exclude him from an on-call list for emergency room and trauma center patients, therefore stifling competition and causing him about $5 million in damages.

Defense attorneys Jeffery LeVee and Barry Cappello, representing Cottage and the surgeons, respectively, argued there was no influence from the hospital’s administration or neurosurgeons on the Medical Executive Committee task force that created the application process for on-call lists.

The jury agreed with the defendants and determined there was no conspiracy and that Dr. Moelleken deserved no damages.

“We are very appreciative of the hard work of the jury and grateful for the outcome,” Cottage spokeswoman Janet O’Neill told Noozhawk on Monday. “We saw this outcome as a strong confirmation of our decision-making process with medical staff.”

The surgeon’s attorney, David Kesselman, told local media they may consider appealing the case.

Dr. Moelleken alleged the neurosurgeons on the on-call list — Drs. Thomas Jones, Scott Conner, Richard Chung and newest member Alois Zauner — had influenced Cottage in keeping him off the list by threatening to pull their own services if an orthopedic surgeon such as himself was included. He had tried unsuccessfully to have Cottage create a spine-only call list.

Defense attorneys argued that Dr. Moelleken had proved unreliable after his unsuccessful stint on the general orthopedic on-call list about 10 years ago and pointed out his financial successes despite the access to Cottage’s emergency patients. Dr. Moelleken owns six patient-care centers in California, including the local Spine & Orthopedics Center and Santa Barbara Family Practice, and the Carrillo Surgery Center at 401 E. Carrillo St.

Kesselman and Cappello did not return calls seeking comment.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

http://www.noozhawk.com/noozhawk/article/040912_jury_denies_antitrust_case_against_cottage/

USSD’s claims include breach of fiduciary duty, constructive fraud, violation of California Penal Code 502 (prohibiting unauthorized access, alteration and interference to computer networks), trademark infringement/dilution, civil conspiracy, contract interference, breach of written contract and unfair business practices.

At the Legal Aid Foundation’s Annual Campaign for Equal Access Fundraising Luncheon held on December 15, 2011, Cappello & Noël, LLP pledged $50,000 to Legal Aid Foundation in a five year pledge. This spearheads Legal Aid’s Champions of Justice, a multi-year giving society charged with helping establish the sustainability and long-term stability of the nearly 53-year old agency.

Law firms Fell Marking, Abkin, Montgomery, Granet& Raney, LLP and Reicker Pfau Pyle & McRoy, LLP and attorneys Allan Ghitterman, D. William Wagner, Sherry Melchiorre, Amy Steinfeld, Penny Mathison and Lessie Nixon all rose to the challenge and pledged multi-year commitments to Champions of Justice.

Each year, a research team at Super Lawyers undertakes an independent, statewide survey of lawyers, compiles peer reviews and makes good-standing and disciplinary checks of thousands of attorneys. Only attorneys receiving the highest marks qualify as a Super Lawyer.

Noël represents plaintiffs in lender liability matters, complex business litigation, class actions and catastrophic personal injury cases. Noël has co-tried most of the firm’s largest cases, and has obtained jury verdicts and settlements in excess of $200 million on behalf of her clients. In 2011, she was named one of the “Top 75 Women Litigators” in California by the Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journals.

Noël joins firm partner A. Barry Cappello as a Super Lawyer. Cappello has received the honor every year since 2007.

The pledge came during a gathering at a Legal Aid Foundation luncheon last week. A. Barry challenged an audience of more than 150 people to invest in the stability of the foundation. “The Legal Aid Foundation plays a critical role in Santa Barbara County,” said Cappello, “Those of us in the legal community should do everything we can to support the foundation’s efforts to help the less fortunate receive legal representation.”

“The need for assistance is growing as economic conditions force families and individuals into legal situations they never could have imagined,” says Leila J. Noël, partner at Cappello & Noël. “Our firm is a strong believer in the foundation’s good work and its steadfast commitment to giving equal legal access to all.”

Cappello & Noël, LLP is one of the preeminent litigation law firms in the country. The Santa Barbara firm has a successful history of representing individuals and small business owners who take on large corporations and their powerful law firms. In particular, Cappello & Noël is acknowledged as the pioneer in lender liability law, where borrowers seek justice against lender misconduct. It also represents plaintiffs in complex business litigation, catastrophic injury and wrongful death cases, and plaintiffs’ class actions. The firm is a strong proponent of equal access to the legal system and professional legal representation regardless of an individual’s financial circumstances.

Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County provides free civil legal services to victims of domestic violence, seniors and low-income individuals throughout the county. Last year, the foundation assisted over 5,100 residents of the county in matters of family law, senior law, housing and eviction defense, consumer law and benefits assistance.

For more information, contact Legal Aid’s development director Niki Richardson at 805.963.6754, ext. 109.

SANTA ANA, Calif. (CN) (Dec. 19, 2011)– The City of Tustin sued Keybank and other lenders to a developer who was hired redevelop a former U.S. Marine base, borrowed $70 million against the project, then failed to complete the work and defaulted on the loans.

The city had ambitious plans for property, which would “create a significant enhancement to the city and to Orange County,” according to the Superior Court complaint.

So massive was the envisioned project that the city says it would take more than two decades for it to be fully built out.

The city contracted with a group called Tustin Legacy Community Partners, to whom it conveyed a significant portion of the project site.

“The sole consideration for this phase of the conveyance was the developer’s promise to perform specific, identified infrastructure development work under specific budgets,” according to the complaint.

But “Only months later, the city was … asked if it would allow the developer to finance a portion of its development costs via a loan from the instant lender defendants, with the real property to secure the purported development loan.”

The city says that in presenting the loan to the city, the defendants – Keybank, U.S. Bank, and First American Title Insurance – “failed to disclose what they knew or should have known, given their enmeshed lending relationship with the developer/borrower entities: that, after obtaining the land for free, and securing a $70 million loan with that land to provide itself with funds, the developer would not perform, and the city would be left with an unconstructed project. In Solyndra-like fashion, that is what occurred.

“The lenders’ loan package had contained numerous provisions to reassure the city that the lender would act as a reputable construction lender for a long-term construction project. These included requirements for lender inspections and vetting of costs before advancing funds, restrictions of the funds to development costs, restriction of funds based on availability formulae, the promise that the property and the loan would not cross-collateralize or secure other obligations, and others. Despite these and other provisions on which the city relied, the lenders then apparently ignored the provisions and made over $50 million in advances under the loan, although the project was in its infancy and the amounts released to the developer bore no relation to any development completed. Had the lenders actually done due diligence, and properly administered the loan as represented, such draws would not have been allowed: the lenders would have seen that less than three plans were ever deemed complete by the city, of the over 100 plans which were required for Phase I of the development, and that the developer had only just begun grading.

“The city ultimately negotiated a termination of the development agreements, and the developer reconveyed the property to the city. However, the city’s property is saddled with record encumbrances related to the lenders’ deeds of trust, which secured the sham construction loan. The city therefore seeks to quiet title to the property, and to obtain damages and other relief for the lenders’ fraud, breaches of contract, and other improper conduct,” according to the 30-page complaint.

Tustin alleges fraudulent nondisclosure, intentional misrepresentation, negligent misrepresentation, concealment, aiding and abetting fraud, breach of contract, and breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

It is represented by A. Barry Cappello with Cappello & Noel of Santa Barbara

The luncheon is a fundraiser for the foundation. Cappello & Noël’s managing partner, A. Barry Cappello, will take to the podium to urge those in attendance to donate to this important legal service.

The mission of the Legal Aid Foundation of Santa Barbara County is to provide high-quality legal services in order to ensure that low-income persons and seniors have access to the civil justice system in times of crisis – to secure safe, habitable shelter, adequate income, and protection from domestic violence and elder abuse.

For more information about the Legal Aid Foundation, go to http://www.lafsbc.org/.