Art Expert Wins $11.25 Million Malicious Prosecution Verdict Against Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher
Won by Hoyt & Blewett PLLC.
Steve Seltzer, a Western art authenticator sued for his expert opinion on a painting's true authorship, won an $11.25 million jury verdict for malicious prosecution after Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher pursued him on behalf of a collector who could not find a single expert to support his position.
What happened
In the early 2000s, W. Steve Seltzer was asked to authenticate a watercolor titled 'Lassoing a Longhorn.' The painting was being offered as a Charles M. Russell work, carrying a value of $650,000 to $800,000. Seltzer, himself the grandson of Western painter Olaf Carl Seltzer, concluded the work was actually by O.C. Seltzer, not Russell, which cut the painting's market value to roughly one-tenth of the asking price.
The painting's owner, collector Steve Morton, hired Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher to challenge that conclusion in court. Before any suit was filed, attorneys at the firm warned Seltzer in writing that punitive damages would be sought if he refused to recant his authentication. He did not recant. Morton's legal team then sued him for defamation and related claims.
The lawsuit collapsed under its own weight. Morton could not find a single expert to contradict Seltzer's finding. Seltzer, by contrast, assembled more than ten affidavits from qualified experts supporting his attribution. Unable to build a case, Morton dropped his claims before trial.
Seltzer then turned plaintiff. Represented by Alexander Blewett III and Joseph P. Cosgrove of Hoyt and Blewett in Great Falls, he sued Morton, Gibson Dunn attorney Dennis Gladwell, and the firm itself for malicious prosecution and abuse of process. A Cascade County jury awarded him $1.1 million in compensatory damages and punitive damages of $100,000 against Morton, $150,000 against Gladwell, and $20 million against Gibson Dunn.
The trial court reduced the Gibson Dunn punitive award to $9.9 million, bringing the total to approximately $11.25 million. In 2007, the Montana Supreme Court affirmed the verdict in full under citation 2007 MT 62. The court found that Gibson Dunn had acted with actual malice and described the firm's conduct toward an expert witness as 'thuggery.' The nine-to-one ratio of punitive to compensatory damages against the firm was expressly upheld as appropriate to the severity of the conduct.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.