Image by Alex Proimos via Wikimedia Commons
A jury Wednesday ordered Bank of America to pay $2.5 million to a Sherman Oaks woman who said she lost currency and valuables when her safe deposit box was drilled open without her knowledge after a branch closure in 2013.
Lianna Sarabekyan sued BofA in June 2014, alleging that she never received notice that the Universal City branch where she rented a large safe deposit box in September 2012 would be closing and that she needed to remove all the box’s contents by June 7, 2013.
Having deliberated since last Thursday, a Los Angeles Superior Court jury concluded that BofA was liable for breach-of-contract and theft.
The panel also found that bank employees acted with malice, triggering a second phase of trial to determine whether Sarabekyan should be awarded punitive damages. The jury deliberated a short time before recessing for the day and will return Thursday.
During the first phase of the trial, Sarabekyan’s lawyer, Richard Foster, recommended that the couple be awarded more than $7 million in compensatory damages. In his closing argument urging the panel to award punitive damages, he said BofA’s worth is about $1.6 trillion and its net assets are about $206 billion.
“They know exactly what happened to (Sarabekyan’s) property,” Foster said. “You have to take the steps to deter this type of conduct.”
Foster said the bank employees did not videotape the drilling of his client’s box because that would have proved she was telling the truth about its contents.
BofA lawyers said Sarabekyan was sent four notices and did not respond to any of them. Bank attorney Mark Kenney said more than 200 other boxes also were drilled open, but none of the renters complained about lost items.
Sarabekyan, 34, said she went to the Universal City branch on June 27, 2013, to get some jewelry she and her husband, Agassi Halajyan, had put in the box. She said she intended to wear the pieces to a wedding, but was told by the bank staff that her box was drilled open and the contents sent to a BofA storage facility on the East Coast.
Halajyan, 43, testified that when he arrived at the branch after receiving a call from his wife, the manager initially denied him a copy of the inventory sheet the bank had made of the contents in the couple’s box when it was drilled open.
He said he made calls and was able to get an executive at another BofA location to order the manager to turn over the inventory document, but that numerous items were missing.
He said he asked the manager why his double eagle gold coins were not listed.
“She said she was not an expert in gold,” Halajyan said.
Halajyan said the couple was assured by bank employees that everything they had in the box would be returned. He said they had to go through additional hoops before being notified that their items were available in mid- July 2013 at the BofA Studio City branch, only to find out that not all their valuables were there.
Among the items missing were 44 diamonds with a current value of about $4.5 million and numerous large and small denomination bills, all worth much more than their face value, he said.
Halajyan estimated that a dozen gold coins collectively worth more than $200,000 were missing, as was a $1 Confederate bill with a value of about $150.
Halajyan, who is not a plaintiff, said outside the courtroom that his father left behind significant wealth in Armenia to come to the U.S. so that he and his brother would not have to fight in a conflict between their native country and Azerbaijan. He said his family did not trust banks in Armenia because they were under Soviet influence.
Halajyan said he and his wife put the valuables in the BofA vault while they had remodeling work done on their home because construction workers typically have the tools to break into safes like the one in which they kept the items in the residence.
–City News Service
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