Thursday, January 28, 1999
Man seeks compensation from UCLA over missing documents
LAWSUIT: University says papers lost but not due to negligence
by department
By Lawrence Ferchaw
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Nearly five years after discovering that documents he had leant
to the university were missing, Edward Erath saw his lawsuit
against UCLA go to trial Wednesday in Los Angeles Superior
Court.
Erath’s lawyers have accused the university of negligence and
infliction of emotional distress, and they are seeking compensation
for the income they allege Erath has lost because of his missing
papers.
The documents, which Erath leant to UCLA in 1983, represented
over 10 years of research aimed at improving the performance of
government agencies, he said.
The papers, which Erath estimated weighed more than one ton,
have been assigned a value of over $700,000 by expert witnesses
hired by his attorneys.
"He was going to use them when he retired," said Penny Wheat,
one of Erath’s attorneys. "He’s been deprived of those documents
for at least five years."
Erath said he has been unable to find work and has had to turn
down offers to use his research since he did not keep duplicate
copies.
"People who do research in academics depend on history," Erath
said. "To destroy my paperwork, my records, literally yanks the
carpet out from under my career."
UCLA’s attorney, Joe Hilberman, questioned whether Erath had
really lost any income from the loss of his documents.
"That’s completely unsubstantiated," Hilberman said. "He found
work for the 20 years before they were lost. He didn’t use them,
and purportedly he earned a living during that time."
The university does not deny that the documents are missing, but
it disagrees with the reason for the document storage and the value
of the papers.
"There’s no dispute about losing them," said Joseph Mandel, vice
chancellor of legal affairs. "The dispute is over whether it was
justified or negligent."
Erath, who earned his doctorate in physics from UCLA, ran a Los
Angeles-based organization called the Center for Technical
Services. He leant his papers to the Graduate School of Management,
now the Anderson School at UCLA, in hopes of establishing a
research program for graduate students, he said.
"The dean of the business school believed with me that we should
create such an institution at the business school," Erath said. "I
thought they were serious."
UCLA contends that the papers were stored at the university as a
personal favor to Erath by the dean of the Graduate School of
Management, J. Clayborn La Force.
"The then-dean of the business school was doing a favor for a
mutual friend by storing the documents," Hilberman said. "There was
no interest to proceed with it, nor was there any interest with
other universities."
Included in the documents were engineering plans, studies of
budgetary systems and historic documents from some of Los Angeles’
political leaders. The papers were kept in file cabinets at UCLA
which only Erath had keys for, according to the trial brief filed
by his attorneys.
A letter dated Dec. 19, 1983, and signed by the dean of the
Graduate School of Management, thanked Erath for loaning the
documents.
"The School is developing research and academic programs on
government policy, and the unique materials you have contributed
should be useful in our attempt to lead the nation in this field,"
the letter said.
Hilberman said that Dean La Force does not have a recollection
of writing the letter, though he acknowledges the signature is
authentic.
"Dean La Force said, ‘How could I have written this letter if I
never saw the documents,’" Hilberman said, adding that the writing
style does not match La Force’s.
The papers were never used to establish a research program, nor
could Erath do anything to establish the research institute without
the help of the university, he said.
"I had foundations lined up to provide the money," Erath said.
"I don’t know why they didn’t do it. I don’t know why they didn’t
take the initiative, and I couldn’t take any initiative without
their cooperation."
Erath returned to the university in 1994 to retrieve his
documents after he learned that other parties were interested in
what he had studied. He was told the documents were missing, and
after helping with the search, Erath turned up empty handed.
Wheat, Erath’s lawyer, said this indicates a need for the
university to do a better job keeping track of documents.
"Apparently the university needs to establish some kind of
quality control for documents," Wheat said.
Hilberman responded that if the documents would have been given
as a gift, they would have been properly tracked.
"We feel responsible for the loss of documents, but it’s always
been our position that the documents have no value," Hilberman
said.
But one expert hired by Erath’s attorneys, who will not be
testifying at the trial, placed the estimated worth of the
documents in the millions.
Jaron Summers, a writer who attended UCLA in the late 1960s,
estimated that some of the historical documents and stories
contained in the papers could have been used to write a number of
movies.
"Depending on how one went about mining the material, it could
have resulted in two or three major screenplays, and also some
memoirs from ‘movers and shakers,’" Summers said.
Summers will not be testifying because Erath’s lawyers want to
focus on the scientific value of the material, which Summers said
would be easier to prove.
Experts hired by the university will testify that the papers
have no value.
The trial brief filed by Erath’s attorneys indicated that they
will seek to establish that UCLA is liable for the missing papers,
but proving the value of the documents is at the heart of the case,
according to the lawyers involved.
"This is a dollars-and-cents lawsuit," UCLA’s Mandel said.
Jury selection began Wednesday and will continue for one more
day. The trial should be over within a week, according to
Hilberman.
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