Both sides feel they have the better bargaining hand in a dispute over who came up first with the idea for the three-year-old, 150,000-sf, $20 million Wide World of Sports complex at Disney's 30,000-acre, 30-year-old empire in suburban Lake Buena Vista, FL.
A settlement for a lesser amount would avoid an expensive hearing shortly before the Fifth District Court of Appeal in Daytona Beach, FL. An Orange County Circuit Court jury found Disney guilty of stealing the sports complex idea from developers Nicholas Stracick, formerly of Buffalo, NY and Edward Russell of Ottawa, Canada.
Disney is confident the jury verdict will be overturned by the appellate court on grounds that All Pro's lawyers allegedly presented erroneous information on Wide World's finances and improperly criticized witnesses. All Pro's celebrity lawyers, Johnnie Cochran and Willie Gary, are equally confident the $240 million verdict will be upheld.
Cochran is the Los Angeles litigator who defended ex-football star O.J. Simpson on murder charges two years ago. Willie Gary of Stuart, FL has won numerous $500 million judgments. His newest clients are Microsoft Corp. employees suing the high-tech California-based giant on job promotion discrimination charges.
Disney's main defense in the sports complex case rests on affidavits by key executives who say company engineers conceived the idea for Wide World of Sports in the early 1990s. Developers Stracick and Russell maintain they showed Disney officials conceptual drawings of the park in the late 1980s. The complex opened in 1997.
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