Judge Denies Aon's Appeal Of $10 Million Jury Verdict.A $10 million jury award in favor of former professional football player Phil McConkey Philip Joseph McConkey (born February 24, 1957 in Buffalo, New York) is a former American football wide receiver who played for the New York Giants (1984-1988), Green Bay Packers (1986), Phoenix Cardinals (1989), and San Diego Chargers (1989) of the National Football League. stands after Aon Corp.'s appeal was denied by New Jersey Superior Court Judge Kenneth Stein. Aon had sought a directed verdict A procedural device whereby the decision in a case is taken out of the hands of the jury by the judge. A verdict is generally directed in a jury trial where there is no other possible conclusion because the side with the Burden of Proof has not offered sufficient evidence to , in which a judge overturns a jury verdict if the facts in law don't warrant the jury's decision. In McConkey's case, the jury found that Alexander & Alexander, a brokerage and consulting firm Noun 1. consulting firm - a firm of experts providing professional advice to an organization for a fee consulting company business firm, firm, house - the members of a business organization that owns or operates one or more establishments; "he worked for a , had misled mis·led v. Past tense and past participle of mislead. McConkey when it recruited him in April 1996 by denying that it was an acquisition candidate. Chicago-based Aon acquired A&A the following December and fired McConkey in March 1997. The six-person jury awarded McConkey $5 million in punitive damages Monetary compensation awarded to an injured party that goes beyond that which is necessary to compensate the individual for losses and that is intended to punish the wrongdoer. , $3 million for lost wages and $2 million for emotional distress emotional distress n. an increasingly popular basis for a claim of damages in lawsuits for injury due to the negligence or intentional acts of another. Originally damages for emotional distress were only awardable in conjunction with damages for actual physical harm. . Aon attorney Davis Carr said he would file another motion to have the judge set aside the entire verdict and a motion to reduce damages. Carr had argued that the case shouldn't have been decided by a jury because McConkey's counsel "turned a wrongful-termination case into a fraud case," Carr said. McConkey's attorney, Neil Mullin of Smith Mullin in Montclair, N.J., called the case a matter of "truth in hiring." He said the decision was likely to affect middle-level and management recruitment across the country. At the trial, Mullin produced a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission showing that A&A had discussions with Aon from January to May 1996 about a possible deal, including an outright sale to Aon. Similar truth-in-hiring cases have been successfully prosecuted in Maine, New Jersey and California. "We'll see a lot more of them because of the growth of the executive-recruiting industry and the increasingly rapid turnover of jobs due to reorganizations," Mullin said. "Executive recruiters will be called upon to answer questions honestly and fully." McConkey left Ross & Co., an insurance broker in Fairfield, N.J., to take the job with A&A. His question about whether A&A was likely to be acquired was "a very thoughtful inquiry," Mullin has said, because when companies merge, redundancies are created, and it was reasonable to believe his new job could be at risk. Carr said the judge's ruling surprised him. "If you look at specific numbers and calculate past loss and future losses, you can't figure out how they got there," Carr said. If Aon loses the next set of motions, the company could appeal to state Superior Court, Appellate Division In several jurisdictions, the Appellate Division is the name of a court, or division of a court, that hears appeals from lower courts.
McConkey played in the National Football League with the New York Giants
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