$740 million: How two brothers’ feud led to a surprising verdict in South Florida

It took a jury only 30 minutes to reach one of the biggest verdicts in recent Florida history — a whopping $740 million.

And now the guy on the losing side argues the trial shouldn’t have been held in Palm Beach County to begin with.

It’s a case arising from an overseas family feud, where two half-brothers from Turkey have been battling over an inheritance from their father, a real estate tycoon.

The back story: Mehmet Salih Tatlici died in 2009; Forbes magazine had ranked him as one of Turkey’s wealthiest people. Since then, it’s been all out war between Mehmet, a son from the patriarch’s first marriage, and Ugur, a son from the dad’s second marriage.

Some of this fight has taken place in their homeland, while other litigation wound up in South Florida — at least initially over the rights to four properties in Boca Raton, two U.S. bank accounts and other assets.

But things really got heated in 2018, when Mehmet sued Ugur in Palm Beach County Circuit Court over defamation claims and related business losses.

At the end of 2019, the six-member jury listened to Mehmet’s complaints about how he was wronged. The panel quickly agreed with him, awarding three-quarters of a billion dollars.

The National Law Journal ranked it as the highest verdict in Florida, and the seventh biggest in the U.S., for that year. The judge ordered Ugur to pay up, and face nearly 7% interest each year that the money went uncollected.

Yet four months ago, Ugur began to object. He says the verdict must be tossed, in part because the case had no place in Palm Beach County. Ugur also says he lives in Turkey and never even knew about the lawsuit from his half-sibling, or had any awareness of a trial that took place entirely without him.

“We’re dealing with whether the court had any power to enter any judgment,” said Bruce Rogow, a prominent Fort Lauderdale attorney and former constitutional law professor who represents Ugur. “What’s it doing in Florida?”

Victory by default

Here’s what happened in Mehmet Tatlici v. Ugur Tatlici, based on court files and interviews with the lawyers involved:

Mehmet accused Ugur of publishing “a significant amount of defamatory statements” on a website titled “Tatlici Truths,” as translated into English.

“The statements thereon demonstrate an almost obsessive need to publicly defame and humiliate [Mehmet] while at the same time create alleged stories of philanthropic behavior by himself,” wrote Mehmet’s lawyer, Jeremy Friedman of Miami. “The information on this website … demonstrates an effort to hurt [Mehmet] in every aspect of both his professional and personal life.”

The lawsuit lists headlines from the website, including, “Shocking claims about Mehmet Tatlici,” and includes allegations that Ugur made statements that Mehmet had committed violent crimes.

In articles on the website, Ugur went so far as to link Mehmet with affiliates of the “FETO” group, which is labeled a terrorist organization in Turkey, Friedman told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

Ubur has denied any connection to or control over the website, which remains active.

Typically the first thing that happens in all civil lawsuits is that they are delivered to, or served, on the individuals being sued. But that never happened in this matter.

According to court records, Mehmet’s lawyer could not locate Ugur anywhere. Friedman told the judge that Ugur was “concealing” his location, and the lawyer even tried to find him at his last known address in Turkey, a hotel he owned.

“His whereabouts could not be located,” Friedman wrote.

In April 2019, Mehmet declared victory by default, and a month later Circuit Judge Janis Brustares Keyser set the case for a trial over the amount of money that Mehmet would be entitled to collect from Ugur.

So without any participation from Ugur, it resulted in an entirely one-sided trial on Dec. 19, 2019. This is what happened:

Official clerk notes from the case show that jury selection began that day at 10:12 a.m., and six jurors and one alternate were picked at 12:03 p.m.

Friedman delivered his opening statement starting at 1:10 p.m., and Mehmet testified for about two and a half hours. For unspecified reasons, one juror was dismissed at 4:19 p.m. and replaced by the alternate.

Friedman gave his closing arguments at 4:42 p.m., and the jury began deliberations at 5:09 p.m. After 31 minutes, they reached the verdict. Members of the panel could not be reached for comment, despite calls and text messages.

Judge Keyser approved the entire award in a Jan. 8, 2020, order, meaning Mehmet now has a legal claim to all those millions.

“We’ve been looking for ways to seize different assets ... in Turkey,” Friedman said. “We believe it’s a collectible judgment.”

Fighting the verdict

Ugur remained out of the picture until October when he hired civil attorney Rogow, whose client list has included Republican political operative Roger Stone. They are pushing for the jury award to be wiped out.

In a sworn statement, Ugur says he hasn’t been to the U.S. since 2009. He says he’s had no dealings in Florida aside from the sale of two Boca properties in 2015 and the sale of a Boynton Beach home in 2016.

Rogow’s arguments: The Palm Beach County court had no authority over Ugur, who wasn’t doing business in Florida, and Ugur has had no ties to the website described in Mehmet’s lawsuit.

“When a court lacks jurisdiction over a defendant, the judgment is absolutely null and void on its face,” Rogow wrote. Along with the disputed website, the trial evidence presented by Mehmet concerned a disputed development in Istanbul, a major Turkish city.

“Here, both Mehmet Tatlici and Ugur Tatlici are citizens and residents of the country of Turkey … the harm alleged and offered as proof in the trial on damages was based in, and occurred solely in the country of Turkey,” Rogow explained. “The State of Florida has no discernible interest in resolving this dispute.”

On top of all of that, Ugur says Mehmet violated Florida law by not properly serving him with the defamation lawsuit, including a failure to deliver it by registered or certified mail, among other requirements.

“At the most basic level, Mehmet Tatlici failed to show that his brother Ugur was concealing his whereabouts,” Rogow wrote.

Along with never getting the suit, Ugur also was never properly notified about the trial and as a result was deprived of his rights to defend himself, Rogow argued in court papers.

He told the Sun Sentinel it’s no surprise that the jury would grant Mehmet’s wishes, since Ugur wasn’t a participant.

“It’s not unusual when there’s no one on the other side and someone testifies what the damages were,” Rogow said, adding Mehmet has already begun trying to seize Ugur’s assets internationally.

But Friedman, Mehmet’s lawyer, says Ugur was fully aware of the lawsuit and chose to ignore it and remain in hiding until he learned about the $740 million verdict.

Mehmet’s counsel explained that in March 2019 he even sent the suit to Ugur’s attorney from separate litigation in Palm Beach County over the Tatlici estate. But Ugur still was missing in action.

“We believe he has known about this from the very beginning,” Friedman said.

He’ll get a chance to ask Ugur about it for the first time on Feb. 26 or March 1, when Ugur sits for questioning during a court-ordered deposition.

Marc Freeman can be reached at mjfreeman@sunsentinel.com and on Twitter @marcjfreeman.