Behm

—Pamela Behm asserts that she was persuaded by the false representations of officers and directors of Clear View Technologies (CVT) to invest approximately $200,000 in the company. CVT claimed to be developing “BarMaster,” a product that would measure pours of alcohol with such precision that it would save large sums of money for purveyors of adult beverages and reap great profits for CVT. When CVT had financial difficulties and Behm discovered the product did not have the viability she had been assured, she filed a lawsuit against CVT and its officers and directors seeking compensatory damages “in a sum exceeding $200,000.”

During the course of the underlying litigation, CVT failed to produce discovery and to comply with court orders. Behm obtained terminating sanctions against CVT, and a default was entered against the company. Behm procured a default judgment for $1,264,668.83, including $924,000 in punitive damages. Thereafter, CVT moved to vacate the default and the default judgment, arguing that it did not have sufficient notice of the amount of punitive damages under Code of Civil Procedure section 425.115, subdivision (f) and that it was entitled to mandatory…