Angela F Yu

Miller Starr Regalia A Professional Law Corporation
1331 North California Boulevard, Fifth Floor, Walnut Creek, CA 94596

(925) 935-9400 (Phone)

Commercial & Business Litigation

920567713

2009

University of California, Berkeley, B.A., Molecular and Cell Biology and a minor in Latin, with honors, 2004

University of Southern California Gould School of Law, J.D., Senior Editor, Southern California Review of Law and Social Justice, 2008

REPRESENTATIVE EXPERIENCE: We represented ten defendants who left their former employer, a wine and spirits distribution business, to start a small wine distributor. Defendants had various agreements with the plaintiffs that were the subject of this lawsuit including a stock purchase agreement, stock sale agreement, employment agreements containing non-competition clauses, confidentiality agreements, separation agreements, and non-disclosure agreements. A suit was brought alleging eighteen causes of action against our ten defendants for breaches of contract, breaches of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, promissory estoppel, promissory fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, conspiracy, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, intentional interference with contractual relations, violation of Business and Professions Code Section 17200, and violation of the California Computer Data and Access Fraud Act. Given the laundry list of causes of action and potential theories of liability, the case was marked by voluminous discovery. We analyzed over 2.4 million pages of documents served by plaintiffs, with over 2.3 million of those pages produced in the last four months before trial. Our clients alone provided 120,000 documents that we analyzed for responsiveness, confidentiality, and privilege. In addition to the extensive amount of documents, we responded to thousands of special interrogatories, requests for production, form interrogatories, and requests for admission on behalf of the ten defendants, while propounding a significant amount of discovery to build our clients' defense. We also took or defended twenty-three depositions in the case.; Through that mass of discovery, we developed an extensive evidentiary record of documents, testimony, and discovery responses that we used to challenge plaintiffs' liability and damage theories, particularly that plaintiffs had suffered any actual damages by our clients' actions.; As a result of that record and in an effort to re-frame their damage theories, plaintiffs filed a motion to amend their complaint one month prior to trial to plead additional causes of action against two of our defendants, including fraud. We successfully opposed plaintiffs' motion, which led plaintiffs to file a second complaint against two defendants in an attempt to exert additional pressure on our clients. As the parties continued to prepared for trial, we opposed a pro hac vice motion and demanded a mandatory settlement conference. During the settlement conference, we successfully pushed back on plaintiffs' liability and damage theories, pointing in particular to a number of recently produced documents that severely undercut plaintiffs' case, while navigating insurance coverage issues that complicated a potential resolution. In the end, we settled both pending actions against our defendants for a fraction of plaintiffs' demand. To say that it was a very successful settlement and that our clients are immensely pleased is certainly an understatement