Robin Singh Educ. Servs., Inc. v. Blueprint Test Preparation, LLC
| Decision Date | 20 February 2013 |
| Docket Number | B204775,B218775,B211422 |
| Parties | ROBIN SINGH EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff and Respondent, v. BLUEPRINT TEST PREPARATION, LLC, et al., Defendants and Appellants. ROBIN SINGH EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant, v. BLUEPRINT TEST PREPARATION, LLC et al., Defendants and Appellants. |
| Court | California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
(Los Angeles County Super. Ct.
Nos. BC330098, BC346066,
BC347174)
(Los Angeles County Super. Ct.
Nos. BC330098, BC346066,
BC347174)
It is ordered that the opinion filed herein on January 23, 2013 be modified as follows:
1. On page 3, the second sentence of the last paragraph, the name "Riley" is deleted and replaced with "Teti" so the sentence reads:
Defendants also appeal from the portion of the judgment awarding TestMasters damages for defamation against Triplett, Riley, and Blueprint, while Teti appeals from the punitive damages award against him.
2. On page 71, the sentence beginning with "TestMasters' two expert witnesses, Singh and Rachel Vincent," is modified to read:
Two of TestMasters' expert witnesses, Singh and Rachel Vincent, TestMasters' Director of Research and Development (LSAT score of 172, in the 99th percentile), gave their opinions that creating Blueprint's course materials would have taken defendants or anyone else years to create and that defendants could not have developed their written course materials in the time they claim they did.
3. On page 86, footnote 46, the words "Singh's girlfriend and" are to be inserted between the words "Naim," and "in-house counsel" so the sentence reads:
46. At the jury trial Sharon Naim, Singh's girlfriend and in-house counsel for TestMasters, testified that she sent over 100 cease and desist letters to TestMasters students, threatening to sue them if they sold their books on the Internet.
4. On page 108, the second sentence in the Disposition, "$592,260.45" is changed to "$703,410.65" so the sentence reads:
The January 24, 2008 order awarding TestMasters $703,410.65 in monetary sanctions is affirmed.
There is no change in judgment. Robin Singh Educational Services, Inc.'s petition for rehearing is denied.
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NOT TO BE PUBLISHED IN THE OFFICIAL REPORTS
California Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a), prohibits courts and parties from citing or relying on opinions not certified for publication or ordered published, except as specified by rule 8.1115(b). This opinion has not been certified for publication or ordered published for purposes of rule 8.1115.
ROBIN SINGH EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff and Respondent,
v.
BLUEPRINT TEST PREPARATION, LLC, et al., Defendants and Appellants.
ROBIN SINGH EDUCATIONAL SERVICES, INC., Plaintiff and Appellant,
v.
BLUEPRINT TEST PREPARATION LLC et al., Defendants and Appellants.
(Los Angeles County Super. Ct.
Nos. BC330098, BC346066,
BC347174)
(Los Angeles County Super. Ct.
Nos. BC330098, BC346066,
BC347174)
APPEALS from a judgment of the Superior Court for the County of Los Angeles, William F. Highberger, Judge. Affirmed in part, reversed in part.
Horvitz & Levy, H. Thomas Watson, Jeremy B. Rosen, Kris Bahr; Cotkin Law Group, Joan M. Cotkin; Ropers, Majeski, Kohn & Bentley, James C. Potepan, Susan H. Handelman, Courtney E. Curtis for Defendants and Appellants.
Horvitz & Levy, H. Thomas Watson, Jeremy B. Rosen, Kris Bahr; Knee, Ross & Silverman and Howard P. Knee for Defendant and Appellant.
Norminton, Wiita & Fuster, Thomas M. Norminton, Kathleen Dority Fuster; Tycko & Zavareei, Hassan A. Zavareei, Andrea R. Gold, Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland, Robin Meadow, Cynthia E. Tobisman, Lara M. Krieger; Zohar Law Firm and Daniel Yehuda Zohar, for Plaintiff and Respondent.
As the importance of standardized tests has increased for admission to undergraduate and graduate schools, the business of preparing students to take those tests has flourished. This case arises out of the creation of a new Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) preparation business by five employees of one test preparation company who left to start a competing company. This professional move generated seven and a half years of litigation, including three and a half years of vigorously contested pretrial discovery and motions, a three-month trial, four appeals, and multiple writ proceedings.
Defendants Trent Teti, Matthew Riley, Justin Capuano, and Jodi Triplett (defendants), along with their colleague Courtney Martin, were LSAT preparation instructors employed by plaintiff Robin Singh Educational Services, Inc., doing business as TestMasters (TestMasters). They thought they could do better on their own. So in the fall of 2004 they began working on what would become in early 2005 a competing LSAT preparation course, defendant Blueprint Test Preparation, LLC (Blueprint). Much of the work they did in creating their new LSAT preparation course was on their personal computers. Because defendants did not want anyone to know that they were working on creating Blueprint in 2004 while they were still working for TestMasters, however, they were not very forthcoming in producing documents during discovery evidencing that they were working on Blueprint in 2004. This tactic generated lengthy and expensivecontroversies in discovery, especially when TestMasters' forensic electronic discovery experts discovered documents in defendants' computers from 2004 that defendants had not produced, and the trial court found that defendants had misused the discovery process.
Defendants' discovery abuse resulted in considerable monetary and nonmonetary sanctions, which gave TestMasters a significant advantage at trial. On TestMasters' main claims for breach of the duty of loyalty by an employee and breach of oral employment contract, the jury found in favor of TestMasters and against Blueprint and Teti, but in favor of the other defendants. The jury, however, awarded TestMasters only $183,000 of the $18 million in damages TestMasters had requested, plus $10,000 in punitive damages against Teti only. On TestMasters' defamation claims, the jury awarded TestMasters a total of $45,000 against Triplett, Riley, and Blueprint.
In these three appeals, defendants appeal the pretrial orders imposing monetary and nonmonetary sanctions against them for misuse of the discovery process. TestMasters appeals from the judgment that awarded TestMasters much less than it had sought to recover. Defendants also appeal from the portion of the judgment awarding TestMasters damages for defamation against Triplett, Riley, and Blueprint, while Riley appeals from the punitive damages award against him. We affirm the trial court's pretrial discovery sanctions orders, and, with the exception of the defamation claims, affirm the judgment.
Robin Singh is a self-described "LSAT enthusiast" and "LSAT junkie." He took the LSAT as a college senior at Duke University, and earned a perfect score of 48.2 Between 1988 and 2003 Singh took the LSAT 26 times,3 scored in the 99th percentile every time, and achieved a perfect score 13 times, which he claims is a world record. Singh never gets tired of taking the LSAT, which keeps him "in touch with the pressure students feel."
In the spring of 1989 Singh began tutoring a group of his college friends for the LSAT. After graduating with a degree1 in history and Latin, Singh enrolled in USC Law School. He took a leave of absence, however, during his first year of law school. Singh never returned because he went into the LSAT preparation business, first as an instructor at Kaplan Test Prep from August 1990 to August 1991, and then as the owner of his own LSAT preparation company, TestMasters, in mid-October 1991.
TestMasters held its first class in the fall of 1991 at USC. By the end of the 1990's, TestMasters was teaching classes throughout California. By 2001 TestMasters had expanded to 18 states, by 2002 to 30 states, and by 2004 to England, Japan, and Canada. Overall, TestMasters' annual enrollment went from 15 students in 1991 to 9,000 in 2004, and during that period 80,000 students took TestMasters' LSAT preparation course. In order to work at TestMasters, an instructor must score in the 99th percentile on the LSAT. TestMasters instructors do not have written contracts.
Trent Teti worked as an LSAT instructor first at Kaplan, and then at TestMasters from approximately 2000 to January 7, 2005. He earned a B.A. in philosophy from UC Berkeley, and studied logic and philosophy as a graduate student at the University of Virginia and UCLA, where he enrolled in but did not complete a Ph.D. program in philosophy. Teti felt that he was the best instructor at TestMasters and that Singh was not giving him "proper due or credit." In his January 7, 2005 resignation email, he told TestMasters that he was leaving to "attend to matters I have long neglected."
Matthew Riley took the TestMasters course as a student and then worked as a TestMasters LSAT instructor from late March or early April 2003 until February 3, 2005. He has taken the LSAT three times, earning 99th percentile scores of 179, 175, and 176, and has never answered a question wrong in the logic games section. When he resigned from TestMasters on February 3, 2005, he stated that he felt "like it is time to move on."
Justin Capuano graduated from UCLA in 2003 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He earned a score of 172 on the LSAT, also in the 99th percentile. In college he taught SAT...
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