TV producer’s wife walks out of court with only an unpaid bill
By DAVE DANFORTH Daily Press Staff Writer sub-head: TV producer’s wife walks out of court with only an unpaid bill
By Dave Danforth
Daily Press Staff Writer
Candy Spelling’s gamble in rebuffing a $150,000 settlement offer over work done on her La Costa Beach house backfired Thursday when a Santa Monica jury sent her home empty-handed.
The jury spent only two hours delivering a unanimous verdict after a five-day trial. As an exclamation point in their rebuff, jurors ordered Spelling to pay project engineer Mel Bilow’s unpaid $6,419.65 bill. It was Bilow’s bid, in small claims court, to collect the bill which preceded Spelling’s $450,000 lawsuit.
The Spelling name didn’t go unnoticed in court. Aaron Spelling is one of a small group of legendary television producers. His hits include “Charlie’s Angels,” “Dynasty,” “The Love Boat” and “Beverly Hills 90210.” At closing arguments, one attorney said the suit, if not the wealthy couple, was about arrogance.
But the Spelling magic evaporated in Judge Jacqueline Connor’s courtroom. One juror told Spelling’s attorney, Robert Chapman, “It was a tough case for you. We felt sorry for you.” They faulted Chapman for neglecting to get expert testimony to back up Spelling’s central claim: that the air conditioning ducts, located beneath the 9,000 square-foot beachfront home, were improperly exposed to waves and sand.
Instead, attorneys for Bilow and other defendants said Spelling simply decided she wanted a stronger system, and tried to pin the $200,000-plus bill for replacing it out on the contractors.
Jurors also said after the verdict that even had they found fault with the installation, Spelling’s testimony about the lost rental value of the home didn’t carry water because no real estate professional backed it.
Spelling technically acts as the trustee for a pair of Spelling trusts that own the home.
The attorneys in the suit agreed with Judge Connor that jurors should hear no arguments about the Spellings’ wealth. But that didn’t stop one of them, Ted Lee, from asserting that the case was about “arrogance” instead. At closing argument, Lee scrawled the name “Spelling” on a display board, and then converted the “S” to “$.”
Because of the reference to the wealthy, Chapman was allowed to rebut it by asserting that in court everyone is equal.
Another close call came when an attorney faulted Spelling for suing over a system which had never broken down. “You’re talking about movie industry people here,” he told the jury. “Did they bring one film strip showing gaping holes?”
“You’re talking about movie industry people here. Did they bring one film strip showing gaping holes?” — — DEFENSE ATTORNEY
Indeed, the lack of damages played a central role in the jury’s quick decision. Chapman had argued for Spelling that a homeowner shouldn’t have to wait for an oceanfront storm to prove damages. But one of the jurors noted that engineer Bilow hadn’t considered the waves because they aren’t even big enough to attract surfers on that stretch of beach.
The jurors were also perplexed when the judge issued an instruction that they weren’t to consider the “performance” of the system at issue, as Spelling had originally argued. One of the defendants, architect Art Torres, settled with Spelling before the case, removing performance as an issue. Instead, Chapman urged jurors not to make Candy Spelling pay twice for a system which wasn’t properly designed.
“There was no evidence that there was anything wrong with that system,” a juror said after the verdict.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 8, 2002. Read the original PDF.