Klein Awarded Another $5 Million : San Diego Jury Penalizes Davis Again, Gives Judge Referee’s Jersey

SAN DIEGO —  Davis and the Raiders are .000 for 1987--and they won’t soon forget the magnitude of the year’s first loss.

A San Diego County Superior Court jury Thursday awarded another $5 million verdict to former San Diego Charger owner Eugene Klein in his lawsuit accusing Davis and the Raiders of malicious prosecution.

The punitive damage award, piled atop the $5-million compensatory verdict the same jury imposed on Davis and the Raiders last month, leaves Davis $10 million in the hole to the outspoken Klein in their acrimonious, decade-long rivalry.

Klein, who sold the Chargers in 1984, claimed that Davis had maliciously singled him out as a defendant in the Raiders’ landmark, 1981 antitrust lawsuit against the National Football League. Klein accused the Raiders of being responsible for the heart attack he suffered on the witness stand during the trial of the antitrust case in May, 1982.

The Raiders won that suit, gaining the right to move from Oakland to Los Angeles, and Davis’ lawyers insisted in the San Diego case that the antitrust victory demonstrated that they were justified in having named Klein as a defendant.

But after two extraordinary months of trial in which a galaxy of sports celebrities and antitrust specialists paraded into Judge Gilbert Harelson’s court, the jury cast its votes--twice--for Klein. And the multimillionaire businessman, who turned 66 Thursday, said Davis got exactly what he deserved.

“This was done with a view to teaching someone who has been a bully all his life--who has bullied people and pushed people around and has supreme arrogance--that you cannot get away with malicious prosecution,” Klein said in a telephone interview from his Rancho Mirage retreat. “There comes a time you have to be stopped.”

Raider attorney Jeff Birren called the verdict “an absolute, unmitigated disgrace.” Former San Francisco Mayor Joseph Alioto, who led Davis’ defense team, said he would ask Harelson to set aside the jury’s decision and enter a judgment in favor of the Raiders.

He blamed the verdict on the hometown bias of a jury of San Diegans.

“This verdict is the result of local prejudice and passion,” he said. “We do not believe this verdict will stand.

The trial ended with a final dollop of the gridiron flavor that permeated the vitriolic case.

After the jury was dismissed, Harelson returned to the bench blowing a whistle and wearing a gift the jurors had given him--a black-and-white striped referee’s jersey.

The judge, who retired earlier this month but agreed to finish hearing the case, stood behind the bench and announced he was engaging in his final act as a judge: He dropped a yellow penalty flag.

Birren said Harelson’s escapade underlined the case’s absurdity.

“This whole thing has been Never-Never Land to me,” he sighed.

Birren said he was unable to predict what effect the $10 million in judgments, if they are not overturned, might have on the Raiders’ ownership arrangements or on Davis’ personal finances.

Davis owns 28% of the team--a share worth $18.2 million to $19.6 million--and has other assets worth less than $1 million, according to estimates used in court.

The jury directed that Davis personally pay $1.4 million of Thursday’s punitive damage verdict. His 28% share of the remaining $3.6 million punitive verdict against the Raiders would be slightly more than $1 million.

Normally, the Raiders’ liability insurers would cover the jury’s initial, $5-million compensatory damages verdict. But the team’s insurance company filed a lawsuit earlier this week in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles seeking to be relieved of any responsibility for Davis and the Raiders’ action in the case. If the insurance company prevails, Davis and the other owners could be forced to pay the entire $10 million in judgments.

But Birren said he was confident that the verdict would be thrown out and that Klein would not have much opportunity to savor the jury’s $10-million birthday gift.

“It’s one of the best ones he’ll ever have,” Birren said. “He won’t have it for long, but it’s a hell of a present.”