Ted Lerner’s Brother Aids Lord & Taylor in Lawsuit Over White Flint Mall

Lawyers for Lawrence Lerner provided transcripts to the legal team representing Lord & Taylor, which they say proves the mall's owners don't have an advanced redevelopment plan

by Andrew Metcalf

White Flint Mall Andrew Metcalf

Brotherly love, not quite.

A series of court filings over the past two months reveal that lawyers for Lawrence Lerner have provided copies of transcripts from interviews with Lerner Enterprises officials to Lord & Taylor, which is suing the company over the redevelopment of the White Flint Mall.

The transcripts included those of an interview with Lawrence’s brother, Ted Lerner, the Washington Nationals owner and founder of Lerner Enterprises, which co-owns the mall with the Tower Companies. The transcripts come from depositions done for Lawrence Lerner’s own lawsuit against the mall’s owners.

Lawrence Lerner’s lawsuit was filed in April 2014 and claims that the plan to redevelop the mall into a mixed-use town center violates a 1975 partnership agreement involving Lawrence. Lawrence Lerner, who lives in Boca Raton, Florida, owns a 2 percent general partner interest in the mall partnership as well as a 2 percent limited partner interest, and his wife Iris owns a 4 percent limited partner interest, according to a Washington Business Journal report.

The brothers have a history of acrimony and lawsuits against each other that dates back to 1983.

Lord & Taylor is involved in its own litigation against the mall’s owners, claiming the company’s lease with the mall was violated. The company is seeking monetary damages and an injunction preventing the mall’s redevelopment from moving forward.

Although the transcripts are sealed, the Lord & Taylor law firm, Greenberg Traurig, LLP, has submitted them as evidence in their case to prove that the mall’s owners do not have a comprehensive plan for redeveloping the mall. Lawrence Lerner’s legal team provided the transcripts, which were marked confidential, to Greenberg attorneys on Nov. 18 and cited a subpoena from April 2014 as to why they were doing so, according to court documents.

Lord & Taylor filed a motion Dec. 19 asking the federal judge in charge of the case to reconsider an injunction to prevent the mall’s owners from redeveloping the mall and respect the terms of Lord & Taylor’s lease, which is scheduled to last until 2055 and includes stipulations that the landlord must operate a “first class high fashion regional shopping center.” The judge, Roger W. Titus, previously threw out Lord & Taylor’s request for an injunction in Dec. 2013.

The motion, filed Dec. 19, asserts that the mall’s owners previously claimed they were in an advanced stage of pursuing redevelopment, when in fact the owners are “still working on concepts, designs and financing.”

The Lord & Taylor lawyers wrote in the motion “these facts were hidden from the court” when the 2013 decision by Titus was made.

In response, lawyers representing the mall’s owners, Katten Muchin Rosenman, LLP, filed a motion this month saying that the transcripts are under a protective order and that the attorneys for Lawrence Lerner were not permitted to share them.

“The Court should not permit Lord & Taylor to attempt to use this improperly obtained testimony to its advantage in this case…” the lawyers argued in the motion. Since finding out that the transcripts were shared with Lord & Taylor’s legal team, lawyers for the mall’s owners have also filed a lawsuit asking that the transcripts from the interviews of Lerner officials be destroyed.

In the Lawrence Lerner case, Ted Lerner was interviewed as well as Edward De Avila, Lerner’s vice president of development in charge of the White Flint project, and William Winterburn, Lerner’s vice president of retail leasing. The interviews were conducted in October and November.

Lord & Taylor’s lawyers claim that the interviews “contain numerous damaging admissions by owners and key employees relating specifically to the allegations and claims in this case. For example, Ted Lerner testified about the progress of the redevelopment and to the level of accuracy of the income figures cited in their pleadings.”

Either way, the latest filings show that the protracted legal battle between Lord & Taylor and the mall’s owners remains heated, with arguments that have already been dismissed re-entering the fold.

In Dec. 2011, the mall’s owners released a sketch plan to the county that showed a variety of buildings situated where the mall currently stands on the 45-acre site. Since then, very little new information about the development has been revealed publicly. The mall’s owners did get a win last year, when it won the case involving Dave & Buster’s, which forced the arcade company to move out of the mall.

As for the mall building, it’s closed and empty except for the Lord & Taylor store.