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From the Editor: Last December a

federal court jury handed down a decision that included what may well have

been one of the largest monetary penalties in history in a case in which no

personal injury was at issue. The suit was brought by Independent Living Aids

(ILA) against Maxi-Aids, two vendors in the blindness field. Preparing a report

on this important verdict will be a massive undertaking—the transcript

of the trial is over 3,400 pages. For the moment Monitor readers must be content

with a press release announcing the bare facts circulated by ILA. Here it is:

Jury Decides in ILA's Favor in Lawsuit

and Grants $2,400,000.06 Verdict Against

Maxi-Aids

In an action brought in Federal Court

by Independent Living Aids (ILA), a jury of five women and four men decided

unanimously that for ten years Maxi-Aids and its owners and officers, Elliott

and Mitchell Zaretsky, had willfully infringed on ILA's copyrighted catalogs

and its ILA trademark and had engaged in unfair business practices and deceptive

advertising. In addition to finding in favor of ILA on two federal counts and

two New York State counts, the jury awarded damages of $2,400,000.06, and Federal

Judge Arthur D. Spatt advised that he would also consider requiring Maxi-Aids

to repay ILA's legal expenses. The six-cent figure was tacked on symbolically,

to reflect recognition of ILA's complaint that, within a two-year period, Maxi-Aids

had won at least five bids from government agencies for Braille and low-vision

watches by beating ILA's bids by six cents.