June 20, 2006
Dropping a Dime
In March, we reported that a three-member panel of the American Arbitration Association entered an interim award against Thomas Kinkade Co., ordering it to pay $860,000 for defrauding the former owners of two failed Thomas Kinkade Signature Galleries in Virginia.
Last week, a judge in Michigan dismissed a lawsuit filed by Thomas Kinkade Co. that accused the former owners’ attorney of illegal eavesdropping during the arbitration hearing. The lawsuit, filed a week after the arbitration award was entered, alleged that the owners’ attorney improperly transmitted over the Internet a live feed of arbitration testimony to a witness. The witness allegedly used the instantaneously transcribed testimony to help the attorney devise questions for other witnesses. The judge rejected Thomas Kinkade Co.’s claim, finding that Michigan’s eavesdropping statute requires a private conversation and that the arbitration proceeding was not a private conversation.