Situation
This unique situation for a business valuation professional came as a result of a lawsuit filed after a divorce. During the divorce process, the husband had paid for valuations of two businesses affected by the divorce. The divorce attorneys who had each successively represented the wife had advised her to get business valuations completed, but she had not done so. Five years after the divorce, she paid for business appraisals and then sued both her divorce attorneys for negligence for not forcing her to pay for business valuations for two businesses involved in the division of assets.
Lou Pereira of Merrimack Business Appraisers was hired by the attorneys for the professional liability insurance companies as the malpractice claim would be settled via the divorce attorneys’ malpractice insurance policies. Pereira’s role was to assess if the business valuations prepared years later were relevant in the settlement of the divorce.
Merrimack Business Appraisers’ Approach
Lou Pereira completed detailed reviews of each of the wife’s appraisals. The detailed reviews included documenting numerous errors, omissions and bias in each appraisal.
Valuation Outcome
The work completed by Merrimack Business Appraisers resulted in the conclusion that the business appraisals developed five years after the divorce, if available then, would not have been accepted by the trier of fact at the time of the divorce settlement, and therefore, the malpractice claim had no merit.
