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Now You See It, Now You Don't.
Little did Alex Popov know that when he snared Barry
Bond's record setting 73rd home run baseball that the ball would
actually end up costing him money.
On the last day of the 2001 baseball season when San
Francisco Giants slugger Bonds, who had already broken the single season
home-run record, crushed his 73rd, and last, of the season into the right
field stands at Pac Bell park.
Popov gloved the ball momentarily, but lost it in a crush of fans. Patrick
Hayashi ended up with the ball. Popov, a restauranteur in Berkeley, sued
Hayashi, saying the ball was rightfully his.
After numerous last-ditch attempts to settle the dispute outside a
courtroom, Popov and Hayashi embarked on a bitter three-week court battle
that ended with Judge Patrick McCarthy ordering them to do exactly what
Barry Bonds himself had suggested: Sell the ball and split the proceeds.
The ball was ultimately sold at auction for
$450,000.
Alex Popov and Patrick Hayashi, once courtroom adversaries, shook hands,
posed for pictures, and told reporters they were just happy to be part of
baseball history — despite a sale price that fell dramatically short of
the ball's once-estimated value of more than $1 million.
Now Popov's lawyer, Martin Triano, has obtained a temporary injunction to
freeze his former client's $225,000 share of the profits, claiming that
Popov owes him the staggering sum of $473,530.32 in legal
fees.
"It was an aggressively litigated case, and we're very proud of what we
did," Triano told Courttv.com "Alex had nothing going into the trial. This
was a very novel case, nothing had been done in the area of personal
property since the 1800s."
Popov, who said he has obtained a new lawyer and is mulling a malpractice
suit, bristled at Triano's comments. "It was a very simple case. He was
the one that made it complex," he said. "I trusted the wrong man."
But by the time the gavel fell, the ball sold for less than the legal fees
Popov's lawyer now claims he is owed.
Popov claims Triano padded his fees by unnecessarily "double- and
triple-teaming" with other lawyers during routine hearings and
depositions, drawing out minor courtroom skirmishes, and spending more
than 60 hours to prepare his opening and closing statements alone.
In addition to Triano's petition, an expert brought in to testify about
similar property law cases says he is owed $19,000.
Meanwhile, on Hayashi's side of the ball, a rosier picture has emerged,
one in which his lawyers seem willing to cut their contingency fees — 20
percent of the sale price of the ball — to ensure that their client won't
go home empty handed.
"It'll be worth his while. It's important that Hayashi walks away with
some significant amount from this given what he had to go through," said
Don Tamaki, one of the San Francisco-based lawyers that handled Hayashi's
case on a contigency basis, not an hourly fee. "I think he ought to be
rewarded for what he put up with. The only way that can happen is if the
lawyers cut their fees, and we're going to do that."
Source: Court TV, "Baseball dispute in court, again,"
July 9, 2003.
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