MedMen Cleared By Jury In Wrongful Termination Suit Brought By Former CFO James Parker

Cannabis retailer MedMen Enterprises Inc. MMEN MMNFF announced Tuesday that the company prevailed in a high-profile lawsuit brought by its former CFO James Parker.

The trial, which was held at the Los Angeles County Superior Court, has been ongoing for over two and a half years. Parker had filed suit against the Los Angeles-based company back in 2019, alleging wrongful termination, breach of contract and retaliation for which he was seeking more than $20 million in damages.

In his lawsuit, Parker alleged that the company’s co-founders, Adam Bierman and Andrew Modlin, forced him to resign.

Prior to being ousted from the publicly traded cannabis company in early 2020, Beirman had served as MedMen’s CEO and Modlin was president.

San Diego marijuana attorney Jessica McElfresh recently estimated that potentially tens of millions of dollars are at stake for all the parties involved, Marijuana Business Daily reported. She added that the trial will likely set a precedent, in one way or another.

Now that the jury ruled in favor of MedMen on all claims, it determined that MedMen does not owe Parker any damages.

In addition, the jury found that Parker had breached his contract, his fiduciary duty, his duty of loyalty, misappropriated trade secrets and committed conversion, but that no harm or damage was resulting from his misconduct.

“We are thrilled that the jury concluded that James Parker is not the victim here, but the perpetrator and that MedMen owes no damages,” said Michael Serruya, MedMen's chairman and interim CEO. “The false allegations brought by Mr. Parker have grossly misrepresented the environment at MedMen in 2018 and certainly bear no resemblance to the MedMen before us today."

Ousted MedMen Executives Sue Their Own Company

In the meantime, Bierman and Modlin, who have found their way back into the legal marijuana industry as partial owners of Coastal Holding Co., a company that holds several cannabis licenses in multiple California cities, recently sued their new partners, over planning to sell the company for $56.2 million to TPCO Holding Corp. GRAM GRAMF, which is doing business as The Parent Company.

The complaint was filed by an entity called LMAJ LLC - whose officers include both Bierman and Modlin - which claims the two men have the right to decide on the sale as partial owners of Coastal.

Photo: Courtesy of Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash