Jury: Boeing must pay $462 million in damages to satellite firm ICO
A Los Angeles jury today awarded $462 million in damages to a satellite company in a dispute against Boeing Co. over canceled plans for a satellite network that could beam TV programming and other services to mobile users around the globe.
ICO Global Communications Inc., whose chairman is cellular phone billionaire Craig McCaw, accused Boeing of thwarting its plans to build the network. The verdict doesn't include punitive damages, which the jury is expected to take up next week.
ICO attorney Barry W. Lee said he was "generally" pleased with the verdict, which came after more than a month of jury deliberation, but reserved further comment until punitive damages were determined.
Boeing said in statement that it would appeal the verdict, which it described as having errors and suggested that the case might "well take several years to run its course."
"There were fundamental errors in the conduct of the trial. There were fundamental errors in the instructions to the jury and in the court's interaction with the jury during the deliberations," Boeing general counsel J. Michael Luttig said. "We thus have significant grounds for appeal."
The initial award calculated by the jurors Tuesday was actually much higher at $742.2 million, but Judge Emilie H. Elias said after the jury panel had left the court that the jurors had made an error in arithmetic and she reduced the damages to $462 million.
Adding to the complexity of the case, Boeing lawyers contended after the courtroom was cleared late Tuesday that the actual damage award was $370 million and that the total already included interest and a separate $91-million award related to a rocket contract. ICO attorneys said interest and damages were separate and as such totaled $462 million.
The disagreement, which the jurors probably will have to resolve next week, was par for the course for one of the more convoluted contract cases in the aerospace industry.
Boeing, which denied any wrongdoing, originally sued ICO in 2004 after ICO terminated its contract for the satellites. ICO countersued, accusing Boeing of breach of contract and fraud, among other things.
ICO was seeking $1.5 billion in actual damages -- more than $2 billion with interest -- and unspecified punitive damages. The jury began deliberations Sept. 15 after hearing 2 1/2 months of testimony.
