- 9 - Respondent devotes much time in his opening brief to his proffered method of apportioning petitioner's legal costs between his business and nonbusiness activities, spending little time arguing that apportionment of the legal costs is appropriate. As we understand respondent's argument on apportionment, petitioner must apportion his legal costs because, respondent asserts, petitioner has not proven that he incurred 100 percent of the costs in his insurance business. We disagree. After reviewing the record, which includes 19 stipulations and 9 exhibits, we are persuaded by more than a preponderance of the evidence that all of petitioner's legal costs were attributable to his insurance business and, more importantly, that all of the costs were connected to claims which arose in that business. Petitioner's complaint, for example, attests to the fact that each of his claims, and not simply his claim of conversion, arose from the sole-proprietor insurance business. We consider it both ordinary and necessary from a business standpoint for petitioner to have filed the lawsuit against Academy and for him to have sought any and all damages to which he was entitled on account of Academy's breach of contract and related conversion. The mere fact that petitioner sought and was paid punitive damages to punish Academy for its "extraordinary misconduct, and to serve as a warning [to it and to other persons] not to engage in such conduct in the future" does notPage: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: May 25, 2011