Jurors Give Valerie Harper $1.63 Million, Slice of Show

A jury today found that Lorimar Productions wrongfully fired Valerie Harper and her husband-producer from the NBC series “Valerie” and awarded the couple a total of $1.85 million, plus 12.5% of the show’s adjusted gross profits for two years.

Following four days of deliberations, the jury awarded Harper $1.63 million and her husband, Tony Cacciotti, $220,000. The couple also were awarded 12.5% of the adjusted gross profits of the show, which is now called “The Hogan Family,” for the 1987 and 1988 seasons.

Harper, who was engulfed in a sea of well-wishers and reporters as she left the courtroom, was asked how she felt. “Vindicated,” she said.

Lorimar sued Harper and Cacciotti for $70 million, contending that they breached their contracts through Harper’s repeated threats to quit and demands that her salary be nearly doubled to $2.2 million a year and 35% of profits. Lorimar later drastically reduced its suit to $313,000.

Harper, who won four Emmys for her roles in “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Rhoda,” countersued for $50 million, adding NBC, an executive and two producers as defendants.

She charged that Lorimar breached an agreement giving her creative input into a show she helped develop and then fired her.

Barry Langberg, Harper’s lawyer, asked the jury for as much as $22.8 million in compensatory damages with punitive damages to be worked out later.

Harper sat out the season’s first show July 31, 1987, then came back two days later after settling her differences with producers and executives.

A few days later on Aug. 7, Harper angrily accused Lorimar of again failing to give her more creative input in the show by not inviting Cacciotti to a meeting of writers and producers.

Lorimar sent Harper a letter three days later, telling her not to come back to the show because she had breached her contract.

Actress Sandy Duncan replaced Harper, and the show was renamed “The Hogan Family” following a court battle waged by Harper.

Lorimar producers and a writer characterized Harper in meetings off the set as “very explosive, angry, crying” and said they were concerned about her mental health.

But directors testified that Harper was “professional” on the set, and Langberg accused Lorimar’s witnesses as being “two-faced” and said their testimony was an effort “to smear her name.”

William Hogoboom, a retired judge, was hired to preside over the trial, which cost both sides about $60,000. If the case had been tried at county expense, it would have taken three to five years.