© 2015 The Texas Lawbook.
By Natalie Posgate
(Feb. 16) – Lance Armstrong learned Monday that the cost of lying under oath about doping will be at least $10 million – an amount that could be multiplied by 10 before all lawsuits against the disgraced cyclist are resolved.
Declaring “perjury must never be profitable,” a three-person arbitration panel ordered Armstrong to pay $10 million in sanctions to SCA Promotions, a North Texas company that insured Armstrong’s prize money and bonuses for winning the Tour de France in 2002, 2003 and 2004.
The $10 million judgment, which was secretly issued on Feb. 4 but revealed in court documents filed Monday in Dallas County District Court, is believed to be the largest financial sanction ever levied against an individual for lying or misleading a judicial proceeding.
“It’s a huge first step in getting SCA fully compensated for the harm and damage that it suffered based on Lance Armstrong’s fraudulent conduct, but it also is a big step in the right direction for the judicial system,” said Dallas attorney Jeff Tillotson, who represents SCA. “It lets all parties and litigants know there’s a price to pay for perjury, and in this case, it’s pretty high.”
Armstrong’s lawyer, Austin attorney Tim Herman, said in an email that the award is “unprecedented.”
“No court or arbitrator has ever reopened a matter which was fully and finally settled voluntarily,” Herman said. “In this matter SCA repeatedly affirmed that it never relied upon anything Armstrong said or did in deciding to settle.”
Armstrong’s dispute with SCA dates back to 2004 when the cyclist sued the insurer for refusing to pay his Tour de France bonus. SCA claimed it held off on the payment because of suspicions about Armstrong cheating to win the race.
The dispute went to a two-week arbitration in 2005, during which Armstrong testified that he had never used performance-enhancing drugs in his career and that he won his races “straight up fair and square.”
Due to Armstrong’s strong statements and a lack of sufficient evidence that he was lying, SCA decided to settle the case for $7.5 million.
Then, in 2013, Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey that he cheated in every Tour de France race he had won. He also admitted that he had committed perjury during his dispute with SCA and that he sought to intimidate and harass witnesses who had tried to tell the truth about his conduct.
A month later, SCA sued Armstrong and Tailwind Sports, the owner of the cyclist’s Tour de France teams, to recover the bonuses it had paid Armstrong. Both sides argued the case for two days in September 2014.
The arbitration panel ruled that Armstrong lied repeatedly when he testified in 2006.
“Deception demands real, meaningful sanctions,” the panel stated.
SCA disclosed the arbitration decision Monday when it asked a Dallas state court judge to enforce the sanctions award against Armstrong.
The SCA litigation is only part of Armstrong’s legal troubles. Former fellow cyclist Floyd Landis filed a whistle-blower lawsuit under the federal False Claims Act alleging Armstrong defrauded the U.S. Postal Service, which was his team’s primary financial sponsor of $40 million.
The U.S. government has joined the lawsuit, which could result in any damage award in the case being tripled against Armstrong.
The arbitration decision is a huge win for Tillotson and his firm, Lynn Tillotson Pinker & Cox, which was besieged for months with more than 1,000 angry emails, letters and phone calls from devoted Armstrong fans.
“No law firm at the time wanted to be adverse to Lance Armstrong,” Tillotson said. “Even my mom, who is a cancer survivor and, at the time, a big Lance fan, was mad at me for taking the case. She’s come around since then.”
Due to confidentiality issues, Tillotson can’t comment yet on the specifics his evidence has uncovered about Armstrong’s methods to intimidate witnesses from telling the truth.
“But I can say that the depth and the level to which Mr. Armstrong went to hide the truth is something out of a movie,” he said. “If lawyers were to make a list to their clients of what they’re not allowed to do in a lawsuit, Armstrong did every single one of them.”
Tillotson’s colleague, Jon Patton, was also involved in SCA’s most recent arbitration. Tillotson and former colleague Cody Towns handled the 2005 arbitration.
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