Jury Awards $600,000 to Container Designer

A small Orange County company that designs cardboard containers has won nearly $600,000 in a jury decision against American Honda Motor Co.

American McNair, based in Orange, said Honda breached an oral agreement when it withdrew its offer of a contract to make cardboard boxes for shipping auto parts from a plant in Mexico. American McNair said it worked six months on the design for the box, which was then taken and used by another manufacturer for Honda.

Eleven of 12 jurors in Los Angeles Superior Court agreed with the box designer and awarded compensatory damages. The judge, Loren Miller Jr., ruled out punitive damages, said American McNair’s president, Edward M. Bell.

Honda’s lawyer, Eugene Grace of Lyon & Lyon, said the award will not stand. The jury miscalculated compensatory damages by about $60,000, Grace said, and it misunderstood a point of law: that oral contracts are binding only after production has commenced. “Mr. Bell is premature,” Grace said, adding that he plans to ask for a retrial.

American McNair, a 15-year-old company that employs 30 people, has designed boxes for Unisys Computers, IBM and the Tomahawk and Patriot missiles, Bell said.