Tuesday, March 28, 2000
Corporex handed $41M in damages
BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
COVINGTON — A federal jury awarded Covington's Corporex Cos. Inc. $41 million in damages Monday in a civil case against Raymond James & Associates, a St. Petersburg, Fla., investment company.
The case stemmed from a 1993 mortgage loan agreement between the two companies in which Raymond James agreed to loan Corporex money to refinance the 236,000-square-foot Grand Baldwin Building at Gilbert Avenue and Eden Park Drive in the Cincin nati neighborhood of Walnut Hills, according to a lawyer for Corporex.
Corporex sued Raymond James for breach of contract, fraud and making false statements.
Corporex later obtained a $16.2 million, 15-year mortgage on the Baldwin Building from General American Life Insurance of St. Louis.
The jury in U.S. District Judge William O. Bertelsman's court ordered Raymond James & Associates to pay Corporex $11 million in compensatory
damages and $30 million in punitive damages.
“I guess one should have a comment, but we don't,” Corporex Chief Executive Officer Bill Butler said Monday. “I think the matter speaks for itself.”
A spokesman for Raymond James & Associates could not be reached for comment Monday.
Raymond James & Associates is the largest investment firm and New York Stock Exchange member in the Southeast. The company was founded in 1962 and now has more than 970 financial advisers in the United States and in 10 offices overseas.
It reported revenues of $1.1 billion in 1998.
Attorneys Mark Hayden and William Robinson tried the case for Corporex.
The refurbished eight-story Baldwin Building was originally the headquarters for Baldwin Piano and Ellington Piano factories. It was built in 1920.
The building's design has been recognized as museum-quality. An engineering drawing of the building done by the engineering firm Lockwood Greene is now part of the Smithsonian collection.
The Baldwin Building now houses Choice Care-Humana and Renaissance Investment Management, among other tenants. It is the centerpiece in the Corporex business campus that includes the Baldwin 200 building and the Milacron building.
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