McNall’s Coin Firm Settles Lawsuit : Court: Judge rules that sisters didn’t prove auction house fraudulently handled their late father’s coin collection.

The daughters of a Thousand Oaks millionaire on Wednesday settled their legal action against a coin auction house co-owned by Bruce McNall, part owner of the Los Angeles Kings, after a judge ruled the women failed to prove the company defrauded them.

Robin Trompeter Gonzalez and her sister, Janet Trompeter Polachek, sued Superior Stamp & Coin Co., which is 51% owned by McNall, in 1992 over its handling of their father’s coin collection.

Before dying of cancer, Ed Trompeter, a Westlake Village electronics manufacturer, decided to sell his collection, fearing that after his death his daughters would not know enough about coins to avoid being swindled.

Trompeter hired Superior, a company he had done business with for 20 years, to sell nearly 400 coins in two separate auctions. The legal battle erupted after the first auction, which took in $3.5 million in gross proceeds.

The women sought $1.5 million in damages against the coin company, which they accused of overcharging their father on the sale of some coins, improperly keeping proceeds from an auction of some of their father’s coins and charging them $1 million for a debt the company claimed their father owed.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel A. Curry dismissed the fraud allegation against Superior on the grounds that the sisters had failed to produce evidence to back up their claim that Superior had agreed to buy back $550,000 in coins from their father to wipe out a $1-million debt he owed the company, said Frank Revere, an attorney representing Superior.

Curry, however, found in favor of the sisters that Superior had breached its contract with their father by keeping $350,000 in auction proceeds.

Following the judge’s ruling, the women chose to settle with Superior and its co-owner, Ira Goldberg, also a defendant. McNall, although he owns a majority share of the coin company, was not individually named as a defendant.

“It’s an absolute, total victory,” Goldberg said in an interview after the hearing. “We’re totally vindicated.”

Goldberg said that “never has there been a whisper of fraud” in his company’s 65-year history.

“That’s why I fought so vehemently to protect our interest,” Goldberg said. “This has been a nightmare for me.”

Superior had filed a countersuit against the sisters for canceling an auction that Goldberg had arranged, in negotiations with Ed Trompeter before his death, to sell the rest of Trompeter’s coins. In the countersuit, the company sought to recover profits it claimed it would have made had the auction taken place.

Under the settlement reached Wednesday, just before Superior would have presented its case to Judge Curry, no money changed hands and both parties agreed to dismiss all claims and lawsuits against each other.

Superior also agreed to return seven coins to the women that were being held as security for possible damages in Superior’s lawsuit against them. Trompeter had purchased six of the coins as a set for $1.8 million.

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Robert A. Levinson, the sisters’ attorney, said that after Curry ruled that no fraud was involved, he indicated that the sisters did not have a right to cancel the auction.

“At that point it became a wash,” Levinson said. “Therefore the most expedient thing at the time would be to go ahead and settle.”

Trompeter Gonzalez said after the hearing Wednesday that she and her sister will probably end up selling the rest of the coins to private collectors. Goldberg estimated the current value of those coins at more than $9 million.

To date the dispute has cost the two sides $700,000 in legal fees, Revere said.

“What’s a shame is that we tried to do this three years ago and they wouldn’t accept it,” Goldberg said.