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$11 Million Jury Verdict – Fraud & Breach of Fiduciary Duty By Business Partner

July 5, 2025 – In a major verdict impacting the regional development and legal communities, a Placer County jury has awarded nearly $11 million in damages against prominent real estate developer Christopher Steele and Sacramento attorney Andrew Sackheim, finding them liable for fraud and breach of fiduciary duty.

The plaintiffs, Donyne Ranch LLC and East Lincoln Associates, LLC, alleged that Steele—who owns seven golf courses across the region—and Sackheim secretly negotiated a sale of their 140-acre development property in Placer County to Elliott Homes in 2012 for $6.6 million, far below market value – so the defendants could take $3 million in profits for themselves while causing the Plaintiffs to lose over $10 million. The jury found that the pair concealed the deal for nearly six years while assuring Donyne Ranch that development was proceeding as planned.
“This case was about a betrayal of trust at the highest level of real estate development partnerships,” said Jeff Ochrach, trial counsel for the plaintiffs. “Mr. Steele and Mr. Sackheim were entrusted to develop this property to maximize its value for all stakeholders. Instead, they secretly sold it at a bottom-of-the-market price, costing our clients more than $10 million.”

Trial evidence showed that Donyne Ranch contributed the 140 acres—then valued over $20 million—to the partnership, while Steele and Sackheim were to contribute their expertise and manage entitlements to significantly increase the land’s value before any sale. The jury determined that had the property been entitled and developed as planned, its value would have been over $12 million.

Christopher Steele is known in the Sacramento and Placer business community as a developer and golf course owner with decades of high-profile projects, while Andrew Sackheim has been a real estate attorney advising and partnering in development transactions.

“This verdict confirms that fiduciaries cannot secretly enrich themselves at the expense of their partners,” said Mr. Ochrach.

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$21 Million Settlement of Breach of Contract case

Mr. Ochrach represented a local Sacramento television station in a lawsuit for breach of an option agreement to sell the TV station to a national television network. The defendant was a multi-billion- dollar company, and it hired one of the largest law firms in the country to fight the case. The defendant fought every issue like it was life or death. The defendant made relatively small settlement offers and promised to “crush” the local TV station.

The turning point case when Mr. Ochrach took the deposition of the CEO and founder of the National television network. The CEO was defended in his deposition by four lawyers – all from law schools like Harvard who objected to almost every question. They made this a very difficult deposition. Yet, Mr. Ochrach persisted and eventually cornered the CEO into giving testimony that revealed the truth – and was devastating to the defendant’s defense of the case. Mr. Ochrach then deposed two other senior executives of the National television network – again extracting key testimony for his client’s case.

Within months of taking these depositions, defense counsel’s negotiating position changed dramatically. The defendant was offering to pay twice what it had previously offered. Mr. Ochrach settled the case obtaining $21 million from the defendant.

$4 Million Settlement, Breach of Franchise Agreement

Our client, Cal, owned an oil change business which was a franchisee of a major oil company.  Under the franchise agreement, Cal had the right to grow his company by opening more and more stores, and then to sell the whole business back to the franchisor (the major oil company).  The language of the franchise agreement in this regards was ambiguous and certainly susceptible of different meanings.  The oil company claimed that Cal was limited in the number of stores he could open and sell back.  The reason the interpretation of the contract was so important is that, if our client was correct, the oil company would owe many millions of dollars.

The entire case hinged on the meaning of the word “or.”  That is, does the work “or” mean “and/or” or does it have only the disjunctive meaning of “or.”

Litigation was hard-fought.  The oil company hired one of the country’s largest law firms, who fought tooth and nail on every issue.  We took depositions around the country, seeking to prove that the oil company executives had the same understanding of the contract that Cal did.   Through these depositions — using key correspondence and notes written by the oil company executives — we were able to make a very good case that the word “or” as used in the parties’ contract meant “and/or,” which meant Cal could open many stores and then sell them all back to the company under a contractual formula that made such a transaction very valuable for our client.

Before trial, the major oil company paid my client $4 million to settle.