Acquisition tax due diligence checklist

Plaintiffs, purchasers of a used car, sued defendant manufacturer for concealing the car's history of transmission repairs and replacements on resale. A jury awarded the purchasers $ 17,811 in compensatory damages and $ 10 million in punitive damages. The Court of Appeal of California, Fifth Appellate District, reduced the punitive damages award to $ 53,435, approximately three times the compensatory damages. The purchasers sought further review. They have experience in acquisition tax due diligence checklist California.

 A dealer told the purchasers that the car they were buying had been traded in for a newer model, when in fact the prior owners experienced repeated and seemingly unrepairable difficulty with the car's transmission. When the purchasers experienced similar problems, the manufacturer's service manager decided the car did not qualify for mandatory repurchase under California's lemon law, Cal. Civ. Code §§ 1790-1795.7, and instead approved issuance of an "owner appreciation certificate" (OAC). The purchasers presented evidence of a pattern of corporate fraud involving the use of OACs in a way that avoided lemon law provisions. The supreme court agreed with the court of appeal that the $ 10 million punitive damages award was not constitutionally justified on the basis of disgorgement of profits earned by the manufacturer through its entire course of wrongful conduct toward other consumers. However, in reducing the award to a small multiple of the relatively modest compensatory damages award, the court of appeal failed to adequately consider, as permitted by due process, that the manufacturer's fraud was more reprehensible because it was part of a repeated corporate practice.

The court reversed the judgment of the court of appeal and remanded the matter to that court for further proceedings.

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion for a new trial by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County (California) and his conviction for the first degree murder of his ex-wife and the imposition of the death sentence. Defendant argued that the trial court erred by not ordering a trial to determine his sanity after he withdrew his not guilty by reason of insanity plea, in its instructions to the jury, and in the admission of evidence.

Defendant's ex-wife and her husband were shot and killed. Defendant was charged with the murder of his ex-wife. On the first day of trial, defendant presented the trial court with an affidavit of a psychiatrist stating that defendant was legally insane at the time of the murder. A week into trial, the trial court received three psychiatrists' reports that defendant was sane at trial and when the crime was committed. Defendant was convicted by a jury based on circumstantial evidence, and he was sentenced to death. Defendant filed a motion for a new trial that was denied. Defendant appealed. The court reversed. The court held that the trial court abused its discretion by permitting defendant to withdraw his plea of not guilty by reason of insanity over defense counsel's implied objection. The admission of evidence about the death of the ex-wife's husband was proper to show motive, intent, and common plan. The court did not err in using reasonable restraint against defendant at trial. Secondary evidence of the content of letters written by defendant was properly admitted. However, defendant was seriously prejudiced by the trial court's jury instruction on lying in wait.

The court reversed the trial court's denial of defendant's motion for a new trial.