The State - News from Sept. 11, 1987

A San Francisco jury has awarded $2.2 million to a man who claimed his male lover breached an verbal agreement to split profits on real estate acquired during their 19-year relationship. The Superior Court jury gave 57-year-old James B. Short of San Francisco $1.7 million in compensatory damages for breach of the contract and $500,000 in punitive damages, said Short’s attorney, Arthur P. McGlenon Jr. Valerie A. Karpman, the lawyer for the defendant, realtor Charles R. Gale, 56, said the verdict would be appealed. “It (the award) was absolutely shocking, since there was no evidence to support it,” Karpman said. “It’s the largest (such award) I’ve ever heard,” said Leonard Graff, legal director for the National Gay Rights Advocates in San Francisco. McGlenon said the verbal agreement, made in 1964, was for the two “to share their lives together and everything they acquired.” Karpman said the pact was never made.