LTL Obtains Jury Verdict for Client MSC.Software Corporation

On Friday, September 17, 2021, a Los Angeles jury awarded LTL client MSC.Software Corporation (“MSC”) $1.4 million in damages in MSC’s contract dispute with former client Heroux-Devtek, Inc. (“HDI”).

The three-day trial involved MSC’s claim that HDI, a Canadian aerospace supplier, breached the parties’ agreement when it did not destroy and continued to use software which it contractually committed to destroy. HDI’s continued use of the software permitted it to continue engineering operations for years when one of its servers became unavailable. HDI admitted that it breached the parties’ contract, but argued that MSC had suffered no damages because it never used more software than the contract permitted, and also argued that the suit was untimely. The eight-person federal jury rejected these defenses awarding MSC the full amount of its requested damages consisting of unpaid software license fees.

“We are grateful that the jurors were able to sift through the misdirection that was thrown them at trial and award compensation to MSC for the products and services HDI used for years without paying for them,” said lead trial counsel David Ammons.