Business Litigation

We make every effort to genuinely understand at the beginning of the relationship the legal issues facing our business clients. We then offer realistic options to allow them to make informed decisions when it matters most – at the beginning of the dispute. Together, we work to develop a sensible litigation plan containing thoughtful strategies designed to serve the client’s specific interests. We understand value-added relationships and will consider in appropriate matters contingency or mixed hourly rate/contingency fee arrangements. 

 We focus our business litigation practice in the following areas:

  • Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Partnership/Shareholder Disputes
  • Unfair or Deceptive Conduct in Business
  • Insurance Disputes
  • Construction Disputes

Shareholder/Partnership/Breach of Fiduciary Duty

For more than twenty years, Jeff Raphaelson has successfully represented partners and shareholders in closely held companies in a wide variety of fiduciary disputes, including self-dealing, misappropriation of partnership or corporate opportunities, freeze-out of minority shareholders, and partnership and shareholder valuation issues.

Mr. Raphaelson has also represented fiduciaries or beneficiaries in trust disputes and will contests.

Representative matters include:

  1. Favorable verdict on behalf of a minority shareholder in an excessive compensation case against the chief executive office of the corporation. The court:

    • Found the corporation’s chief executive office and all of the members of the Board of Directors in breach of their fiduciary duties;

    • Effectively struck the bonus provision of the chief executive’s employment contract, which saved the company $500,000 in past due bonuses and potentially millions of dollars in future bonuses; and

    • Order the corporation to abide by a dividend distribution policy and to reimburse the minority shareholder reasonable attorney’s fees.

  2. Seven figure settlement of a breach of fiduciary duty claim against a minority shareholder who interfered with the majority shareholder’s efforts to sell his stock to a third party.
  1. Represented two Worcester lawyers in law firm partnership dispute and dissolution.  The arbitrator found that clients did not breach their fiduciary duties owed to their two former partners, that the two former partners did breach their fiduciary duties owed to clients, and that clients were entitled to receive virtually all of the relief that they sought in the arbitration, including attorneys' fees.

Unfair or Deceptive Conduct in Business

Raphaelson & Raphaelson has helped its clients resolve a broad range of unfair and deceptive conduct cases, including willful breach of contract, wrongful interference with advantageous business relations, fraud and other unfair or deceptive conduct in business.

Representative matters include:

  1. Jury verdict and judgment for fraud on behalf of a Boston-area restaurant owner.

    • The jury awarded the restaurant owner all of its losses;

    • The Court doubled the jury’s verdict and awarded attorney’s fees under the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act, Chapter 93A of the Massachusetts General Laws; and

    • The verdict for double damages and attorney’s fees was upheld on appeal.

  2. Summary judgment against bank for unfair and deceptive business practices in violation of the Massachusetts Consumer Protection Act.

    • The bank paid over a half-million dollars in punitive damages and attorney’s fees in settlement that followed.

  3. Jury verdict and judgment for several hundred thousand dollars against commercial landlord for deceit. The business owners recovered nearly all of their losses. The Massachusetts Appeals Court upheld the jury’s award.

Related Case Study

Insurance

We advise individuals and companies in a wide range of disputes involving insurance coverage for fire, life, disability, and property. Business owners and individuals rely on us to protect their interests against insurance companies who wrongfully refuse to pay fair value on claims or deny coverage altogether. We work to fully understand the dispute as early as possible, engaging appropriate experts as necessary, so that we may give our clients informed options from the beginning of the dispute.

Representative matters include:

  1. Insurer refused to honor a fire insurance policy on a commercial building, claiming the insured set the fire that led to the complete loss of the property. In the two-week trial, Raphaelson & Raphaelson successfully impeached the testimony of the insurer’s forensic experts on the cause and origin of the fire.

  2. Insurance company claimed insured made a material misrepresentation in application for disability coverage, and refused to honor policy after insured became totally disabled. Raphaelson & Raphaelson proved that insurer’s agent added statement to application after insured signed, and therefore was not binding on the insured.

Related Case Studies

 

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