Friday, July 30, 2010

Cambridge announces Monteiro appeal, gets value wrong

Bob La Trémouille reports:

It is always difficult to figure out what comes out of the City of Cambridge, but here goes.

Yesterday, July 29, there were two media reports of the appeal in the case of Malvina Monteiro v. City of Cambridge. Both got the value wrong. One reported that they had tried to contact the Plaintiff’s attorney without success. So the report with its error must have come from Cambridge. Since Cambridge is the appealing party, it is possible the appellate papers have the same error.

Final judgment entered May 25.

My calculation of the numbers came in the low to middle $6 million. The Cambridge Chronicle, at that time, quoted the Plaintiff’s attorney at $6.9 million.

Appeal was filed on July 16. I reported the appeal on this blog on July 21.

Yesterday, Lawyers USA and the Chronicle reported the appeal, quoting the value at $4.5 million, a modest understatement of the value before the post judgment motions. Coming from the Chronicle, that lower number is quite telling, since two months ago, they were saying $6.9 million.

My reading, because of the error and the Chronicle’s statement that they could not contact the Plaintiff’s attorney, is that the information was put out by Cambridge. Very interesting that Cambridge would understate the value by $2 million. But that is the City of Cambridge for you.