Lawyers Trot Out ‘Truths’ in Davis, Klein Trial

Attorneys invoked God, the flag, Dante, Milton and Mark Twain as a jury returned to court Tuesday to weigh imposing punitive damages in the legal brouhaha between Los Angeles Raiders managing general partner Al Davis and former San Diego Chargers owner Eugene Klein.

Klein’s attorneys asked for $10 million in punitive damages against Davis and the Raiders--double the $5-million verdict jurors rendered against them last month for singling out Klein as a defendant in the Raiders’ landmark antitrust lawsuit against the National Football League.

But Joseph Alioto, the former San Francisco mayor who represents Davis and the Raiders, argued that the $5-million verdict was punishment enough.

Klein, who suffered a heart attack on the witness stand in the antitrust case, contended that Davis maliciously named him as a defendant in the $180-million lawsuit in vengeance for Klein’s public criticisms of the Raiders’ refusal to participate in NFL charity campaigns.

Davis’ lawyers insisted there was nothing malicious about the antitrust suit--a case Davis won, obtaining the right to move the Raiders from Oakland to Los Angeles.

Frank Pitre, one of Klein’s attorneys, called on the jurors Tuesday to impose a painfully large punitive verdict on the Raiders and Davis to send a message to banks, collection agencies, credit card companies and anyone else who would misuse the courts.

He quoted his Sicilian grandfather: “People who work injustice deserve justice in no less measure.”

Alioto admitted “it’s a very difficult thing to come back and talk to a jury that just whacked you for $5 million.”

But he argued that the jury--which asked at one point in its earlier deliberations whether it could direct that Davis pay damages to charity instead of to Klein--already had punished Davis and the Raiders.

Alioto quoted Italian poet Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” English poet John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” and a homily from poet Matthew Arnold as he retraced details of the antitrust lawsuit and the two-month trial in San Diego.

Joseph Cotchett, another of Klein’s lawyers, got the last word, however. First he borrowed a biblical quote that Sen. Sam Ervin had used in a Watergate-related context: “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. For whatever a man soweth, that also shall he reap.”

Then, contending that Alioto had misstated a key issue in the case, he quoted Mark Twain: “Get your facts first, and then you can distort them any way you want.”

Cotchett warned the jurors against being intimidated by Alioto, calling him “the best money can buy.”