Woman Liable for Defrauding O.C. Publishing Rival

SANTA ANA â€”  A woman who last year won the right to publish the official Laguna Hills Leisure World phone book was held liable Friday for defrauding the phone book’s longtime publisher, which had sued her after losing the contract.

An Orange County Superior Court jury ruled unanimously for the plaintiff, Anchor Publications of Orange. The jury awarded Anchor $1.1 million in damages from its former advertising employee, Clare Twedt, her Farmers Publications and a Farmers employee.

The jurors ruled that Twedt (pronounced TWEET) and Eric Tencamp, another former Anchor employee who joined her business, set up the new enterprise while still under contract with Anchor.

The suit contends the defendants misled advertisers by using other people’s work to illustrate their concept for the phone book, and copied Anchor ad contracts and other trade secrets at a time in 1995 when Anchor’s publisher, Scott Weikel, was in and out of the hospital with a severe bowel disease.

The intense battle between the publishers centered on the right to become the official supplier of phone books listing the 18,000 retirees in the closely guarded, walled community.

The rivals wound up in a bidding war in early 1996 to pay Leisure World, according to testimony at the five-week trial.

Anchor, with a 30-year history as a specialty publisher for retirement communities, proposed to pay Leisure World $40,000 a year for a 10-year contract, $400,000 in all.

But leaders of the Leisure World homeowners association chose Farmers’ offer of $85,000 for a three-year contract.

The association didn’t want to be locked into the longer deal and believed that Twedt would produce a more modern-looking phone book, said William R. Hart, a lawyer for the retirement community.

The companies wound up mailing competing 1997 phone books to Leisure World residents.

Twedt was out of state Friday and couldn’t be reached for comment. In a previous interview, she said she would declare bankruptcy and move to Texas, her former home, if the verdict went against her.

Tencamp said he and Twedt have no assets left to pay the damages, even if the award withstands appeals. “They’ll never see it,� he said.

Leisure World homeowners groups and several individuals at the retirement community had been named defendants. But Judge Ragnar Englebretson dismissed them from the case at the end of testimony, ruling the evidence against them was insufficient.

Englebretson also tossed out charges that the defendants violated Weikel’s civil rights by discriminating against him on the basis of his medical condition, Crohn’s disease.

And the judge dismissed allegations that Anchor’s First Amendment publication rights had been interfered with. At Leisure World’s suggestion, he instead ordered the retirement community to treat all publishers equally in the future.

Anchor’s lawyer, James M. Trush, said he will appeal the dismissal of the Leisure World defendants and the civil rights and First Amendment charges.

“We believe Leisure World was involved in all the activity,� Trush said, acknowledging that the retirement community is the only likely source of recovery for his client. The jury will reconvene next week to consider adding punitive damages to the $1.1 million in actual damages.

Hart, Leisure World’s lawyer, said he believes that no damages were merited, adding that he thinks it likely the judge will reduce them.

“This case was like using a sledgehammer on a fly,� Hart said.