Jury awards Sunshine Mills $61 million
Following a three-week civil trial, a Franklin County jury awarded Sunshine Mills, Inc., of Red Bay, an astonishing $61 million verdict Friday morning.
Courthouse officials said the verdict is by far the largest ever awarded in Franklin County, and perhaps, in northwest Alabama.
Sunshine Mills, Inc., filed suit against Ross Systems, an Atlanta-based software company who was supposed to help modernize the Red Bay plant and to “help it compete in the 21st century.”
Russellville attorney Danny McDowell, who helped represent Sunshine in its case, said Ross Systems began working with Sunshine Mills more than five years ago to implement a software system that would allow the company to modernize its operating procedures, from production to billing and delivery.
“To make the sale, Ross told Sunshine Mills things about the software we now know simply were not true,” he said.
According to court records, the plaintiffs argued that Ross Systems falsely identified their product as being the latest, cutting edge technology, but instead, the software was actually a poor fit for companies such as Sunshine.
“It was a disaster that nearly shut the company down,” Sunshine’s attorney, Stephen Rowe, said in his opening statements.
The type of software Sunshine was looking for was called ERP, which is short for Enterprise Resource Planning. They basically wanted a software system that would run the entire plant, McDowell said.
Following a series of problems early in the implementation process, Ross officials reportedly told Sunshine Mills that they were using a beta software, which means it had not been tested.
“They were the guinea pigs,” McDowell said. “Nobody had ever used it before.”
Plaintiffs argued that the software did not produce the benefits, cost savings and revenue that was promised to them. Sunshine also spent more than $2.5 million to buy and install the software.
Courthouse records indicate that countless intercompany emails by Ross employees showed they knew the software would not be beneficial to Sunshine Mills.
Friday, the jury awarded Sunshine Mills $16,381,343 in compensatory damages and $45 million in punitive damages.
“I personally, and on behalf of Sunshine Mills, want to thank the jurors for their service,” McDowell said.
“They were very attentive and dedicated and they took their responsibility seriously. For them to take three weeks out of their lives for public service says a lot about the people of Franklin County.”
