More developments in the case of Monte Seth Carmical v. Home Federal Bank Corporation, Morgandi, LLC and Antony Saragas have come to light. The original judgement of $620,000 was set aside by an order issued by Judge James Bowling on Jan. 4.

The order states “The jury verdict and judgement entered on Sept. 25 is hereby set aside, and a judgment is hereby entered in favor of defendants with court costs awarded to said defendants.”

Mike Anderson, co-owner of Morgandi, LLC. said attorneys contested the verdict after the trial.

“After the verdict was awarded to Mr. Carmical, our attorney’s filed a judgement not withstanding verdict,” said Anderson. “It’s a legal process that goes on with a lot of cases, especially cases like this where defendants don’t think that the burden of proof has been met.”

Anderson said as a result of that filing, the verdict had been thrown out in January.

“I think we waited about two months or so to find out his (Bowling) ruling on that,” said Anderson. “At that point we found out that finally we were vindicated.”

The Jan. 4 order, which sets aside the jury’s verdict, states there was not enough evidence to support the verdict.

“Plaintiff failed to present the ‘quality of evidence required to permit an inference of the approximate amount of damage or to furnish a rational basis for computation of the loss.” reads the order.

The order goes on to state that although Carmical sought damages based on future profits of an existing business, he did not “inspect the books of that business, offer those records into evidence, or retain or use an expert to determine lost profits.”

Anderson pointed out Carmical’s attorney has filed an appeal, as reported in the Enterprise on Wednesday.

“He was appealing the bank being thrown out, and he was appealing the mitigation of damages. They were wanting a million-dollar verdict, which the jury awarded them, but they had to mitigate the cost of what we paid for the property,” said Anderson.

Anderson said there are parts of the story that have not been made public.

“There were several witnesses that told the same story,” said Anderson. “Myself, Mr. Saragas, Ed Harris (then owner of Sunshine Storage) and another fellow that I do business with — Greg Shanks — also testified that I came to him before I ever went to Tony Saragas about this deal. Tony came in at the very end of the deal. I negotiated everything with Mr. Harris. Seth’s attorney painted the picture that the deal was stolen from Seth. He had every opportunity to buy the property. Had money in the bank to buy the property. He just never did do it.”

According to Anderson, Harris informed him that Carmical was in the picture when he first went to Harris to inquire about purchasing the property.

“He told me he would contact Carmical and see where he stood. He told me to give him a week or so then I could contact him and he would let me know,” said Anderson. “I let that time pass and when I contacted him he said that he had called Carmical and told him that somebody else had shown interest in the property and if he wanted to buy it they needed to expedite their deal and he gave him a week. He never heard from Seth again.”

Previous reports state Carmical has filed notice to appeal the decision.

Reach Joe P. Asher at 606-573-4510 or jasher@civitasmedia.com