POINT III
LITMAN IS ENTITLED TO SUBSTANTIAL COMPENSATORY AND PUNITIVE DAMAGES
A. The Statutory Framework Permits Full Recovery
As established in Points I and II, Goldberg is liable under Civil Rights Law § 51 for the unauthorized use of Litman's name. The question here is the measure of that liability.
New York Civil Rights Law § 51 authorizes a plaintiff whose name has been misappropriated for commercial purposes to recover: (1) injunctive relief; (2) compensatory damages; (3) punitive or exemplary damages where the unauthorized use is willful; and (4) reasonable attorney's fees. The statute imposes no cap on damages. See N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 51; Lohan v. Perez, 924 F. Supp. 2d 447, 456 (E.D.N.Y. 2013). New York courts have recognized three well-established methodologies for measuring compensatory damages under § 51: (a) the defendant's profits attributable to the unauthorized use; (b) a reasonable royalty or licensing fee; and (c) injury to the plaintiff's professional reputation and earning capacity. Litman is entitled to recovery under each.
B. Goldberg's Profits Attributable to the Unauthorized Use of Litman's Name
Plaintiff's own contemporaneous statement to his trial counsel confirms that the accounting records discussed below are direct evidence of the § 51 publication damages, not collateral contract evidence. In an April 6, 2026 communication to trial counsel Scott Woller, Plaintiff framed the discovery objective in precisely these terms: "correlate the commercial tie to the firm's accounting system for each such matter using my name in violation of the NY identity rights statute."[^litman-woller-20260406] Each docket in the NGM accounting system is thus tied — by Plaintiff's own framing, made to his own attorney before this brief was drafted — to a specific commercial use of his name in violation of Civil Rights Law § 51. The financial records below are not contract damages dressed up as tort damages; they are the dollar-by-dollar measure of the § 51 publications themselves.
[^litman-woller-20260406]: Email from Richard C. Litman to Scott Woller, Esq. (trial counsel), April 6, 2026, on file with counsel.
The most direct measure of damages is the profit Goldberg derived from the very name he misappropriated. The evidence on this point is overwhelming and comes from Goldberg's own records.
NGM's own Trust Ledger, generated June 26, 2025, contains a field labeled "Introducing Lawyer" that filters by attorney origination. (See Exhibit __, NGM Trust Ledger.) When filtered for "RL — Richard Litman," the ledger shows total receipts of $32,708,669.08 across 2,214 dockets. (Id.) Of this sum, $24,509,250.24 — fully 75% of all receipts — was collected during the statutory period, i.e., after June 15, 2020, across 1,207 active dockets. (Id.)
These are not estimates or projections. They are Goldberg's own accounting records, maintained in the ordinary course of business, that tag each dollar to Litman's name as the originating attorney.
The Trust Ledger further breaks down by client. The six institutional clients whose patent work Goldberg prosecuted under Litman's name account for the following receipts:
Client | Receipts | Dockets | Trust Balance King Faisal University | $13,926,785 | 298 | $834,610 King Saud University | $6,867,794 | 210 | -- UAEU | $1,733,750 | 33 | -- Kuwait University | $540,889 | 67 | -- KISR | $503,819 | 14 | -- Dasman Diabetes Institute | $176,470 | 16 | -- Combined | $23,749,507 | 638 |
(See Exhibit __, Trust Ledger Client Summary.) These six clients alone generated $23,749,507 in receipts — and every patent filed on their behalf during the statutory period bore Litman's name on Line 74 of the patent grant, in Powers of Attorney signed by Goldberg, in filing receipts, and on the NGM website. The name was not incidental to the revenue. These clients retained the firm because of Litman's decades-long reputation in international patent prosecution; Goldberg exploited that reputation by continuing to hold Litman out as their attorney of record for nearly five years after Litman's departure.
Goldberg's internal financial records independently confirm that he collected $18.53 million under Litman's name between 2020 and 2025. (See Exhibit __, Goldberg Financial Summary.) The same records establish that the firm was 76-79% dependent on Litman-originated work during this period. (Id.) Goldberg kept 80% of this revenue for himself, paying Litman only 20%. (Id.) The 80/20 split — applied to $24.5 million in post-SOL receipts — means Goldberg personally retained approximately $19.6 million generated by work conducted under Litman's misappropriated name.
However, a forensic comparison of Goldberg's internal Revenue Workup against the trust ledger reveals a $16,202,064 accounting gap: the trust ledger shows $32,708,669 in total receipts, while Goldberg's Revenue Workup accounts for only $16,506,605. (See Exhibit __, Financial Analysis.) This discrepancy is not attributable to rounding or methodology. King Faisal University and King Saud University — the firm's two largest clients, representing 84% of all payments — appear with $0 in the "Receipts" column of Goldberg's Revenue sheet despite generating over $20 million in trust receipts. (Id.) The systematic exclusion of the two largest revenue sources from Goldberg's internal accounting is powerful evidence of financial manipulation designed to understate Litman's royalty base.
The gap has direct damages implications. Under the trust receipt method — which uses the firm's own contemporaneous banking records rather than Goldberg's self-prepared summaries — Litman is owed $3,472,955, calculated as 20% of trust receipts attributable to Litman-originated clients. (Id.) Goldberg's own Workup, by contrast, claims Litman has been overpaid by $673.80. (Id.) The $3,473,629 difference between these two calculations ($3,472,955 owed vs. $673.80 overpaid) demonstrates the scale of the accounting manipulation.
The arbitrator in the McCammon proceeding independently confirmed the commercial value of Litman's name. The Arbitration Award characterizes the 20% payments as "a payment made in exchange for a privilege, in this case the privilege of servicing the lucrative client base brought by Litman to NGM." (Arbitration Award, June 14, 2023, Case No. 2022001552.) The Combination Agreement's revenue-sharing structure further confirms the commercial value. Under the Agreement and Amendment, Litman was entitled to 20% of Revenue from "Litman Originated Clients" — defined as clients engaged "as a primary consequence of the efforts, reputation or other actions of LITMAN." (Combination Agreement ¶ 8; Amendment ¶ 1.) This definition explicitly ties Litman's reputation to the revenue stream. Goldberg collected $24.5 million in post-SOL receipts from Litman Originated Clients while simultaneously using Litman's name on the patents generated by those clients — then paid Litman only 20% while retaining 80% for himself.
The Combination Agreement's definition of "Litman Originated Client" includes clients engaged "as a primary consequence of the efforts, reputation or other actions of LITMAN" — explicitly linking Litman's professional reputation to the revenue stream. On December 23, 2024, Goldberg texted Litman: "KFU is winding up with 631 patents this year, we hit their goal of 600 for the year." (Exhibit __, Text Messages, p. 38.) These 631 patents — each bearing Litman's name — were not incidental to the revenue. They were the revenue.
As of December 31, 2025, $1,070,985.64 in outstanding receivables remains attributable to Litman-originated clients — 100% of the firm's outstanding receivables. (See Exhibit __, Financial Analysis.) These receivables represent fees billed under Litman's name that have not yet been collected, further confirming the ongoing commercial exploitation.
The 2025 accounts receivable data independently confirms the scale. Goldberg billed $1,464,572 in 2025, with $990,089 remaining outstanding as of June 2025 — 100% from Litman-originated clients. (See Exhibit , 2025 Accounts Receivable.) King Saud University alone owes $733,302. (Id.) Additionally, the KFU Billing Trust Summary prepared by Litman (Exhibit A) calculates a $13.9 million recovery opportunity from King Faisal University alone: $9.7 million in unbilled fees, $2.6 million in trust balance, and $1.6 million in unpaid 20% share owed to Litman. (See Exhibit , KFU Billing Trust Summary.) These figures demonstrate that the commercial exploitation of Litman's name was not winding down — it was generating substantial ongoing receivables and unbilled work product, all attributed to an attorney who could not perform the work.
Goldberg ceased all royalty payments to Litman after May 2025, leaving $246,628 owed as of December 2025. (Id.) The cessation of payments coincided with Litman's objections to the name use — effectively punishing Litman for asserting his rights while continuing to collect fees on matters bearing his name. Goldberg's BOP Response (February 26, 2026) admits as much: his Fifth Affirmative Defense concedes that "Plaintiff has received and is receiving compensation for collected fees for work completed for originated clients during the period of time from June 15, 2020 through June 15, 2025." (Exhibit __, BOP Response, Fifth Affirmative Defense.) The use of "is receiving" in the present tense confirms the ongoing financial relationship — while the actual payments have stopped.
The 20 largest individual post-SOL trust transactions range from $297,000 to $1.44 million, and 18 of the 20 involve King Faisal University. (See Exhibit __, Trust Ledger Transaction Detail.) Each of these transactions flowed through dockets on which Litman's name appeared as attorney of record — a name Goldberg placed there by his own hand through 16 personally signed Powers of Attorney.
C. A Reasonable Royalty Measure Independently Supports Substantial Damages
Even if this Court were to decline a full disgorgement of profits, Litman is entitled to the reasonable royalty Goldberg would have had to pay for a license to use Litman's name in commercial patent practice. The royalty methodology asks: what would a willing licensor and willing licensee have agreed upon for the right to use Litman's name and professional identity in patent prosecution?
The answer is established by Goldberg's own conduct. In 2017, NGM paid $214,532 to acquire the "Litman Law Offices" service mark. (See Exhibit __, Service Mark Purchase Records.) That payment — made when the parties were still working together — is a direct market valuation of the commercial worth of Litman's name in the patent field, and it was made before the period of unauthorized use that generated $24.5 million in receipts. The 2017 price represents the floor, not the ceiling, of the name's licensing value.
The insurance market provides additional evidence of the name's commercial value. NGM paid $38,260 in annual premiums for professional liability coverage that listed Litman as "Of Counsel." (See Exhibit __, Professional Liability Policy.) Insurance underwriters price risk based on the composition of the insured firm; Litman's inclusion as "Of Counsel" was a material representation that affected the premium. This third-party market transaction — in which Goldberg personally represented Litman's association with the firm to a regulated insurer — independently confirms the commercial value of the name use.
A reasonable royalty calculated as a percentage of post-SOL revenue yields the following range:
Any figure within this range is conservative given that 76-79% of the firm's entire revenue depended on the name Goldberg refused to stop using.
D. Litman Has Suffered Concrete Injury to His Professional Reputation and Earning Capacity
Litman's name now appears on 905 United States patents issued between June 15, 2020 and January 14, 2025, identifying him as the attorney of record for prosecution work he did not perform, did not supervise, and could not have supervised — as Goldberg himself admits Litman became physically disabled in June 2020. (Answer ¶ 39.) These patent records are permanent. They are republished on multiple global patent databases, including Google Patents, Lens.org, and Free Patents Online. They cannot be amended or withdrawn. For the remainder of his professional life, Litman's name will be associated with the quality — or lack thereof — of patent prosecution conducted entirely by Goldberg and his staff.
This is not a speculative harm. Litman's professional identity as a patent attorney was his life's work. Every one of those 905 patents is now a permanent public record tying Litman to work product over which he exercised no quality control. Any future malpractice claim, any patent invalidation, any prosecution deficiency in those 905 files will be attributed to Litman in public records and in the professional community.
Goldberg's own June 16, 2025 Client List Report confirms the full scope of what was exploited. That report — generated by Goldberg himself — shows that Litman originated 674 clients with 7,216 dockets. (See Exhibit __, NGM Client List Report, June 16, 2025.) This is not a peripheral association. It is the entirety of the practice built under Litman's name — client relationships permanently tied to his identity in 905 patents and thousands of docket entries. These relationships represent the professional legacy of a career spanning decades. Goldberg exploited that legacy by continuing to hold Litman out as an active attorney of record while Litman could not practice, could not supervise the work, and had no control over the quality of what was filed under his name.
The harm is compounded by Goldberg's ultimate response to Litman's objections. On July 18, 2025, Litman texted: "My personal emails have been eliminated from litman@4patent.com and the Nath law account. Is that something you can correct?" Goldberg replied: "It should be. Let me find out from IT what happened." Litman continued: "Same with NathLaw.com. This whole thing is really affecting me." (Exhibit __, Text Messages, p. 51.) Goldberg controlled even Litman's digital identity — the email addresses and website domain bearing Litman's name — and could terminate Litman's access at will while continuing to use that name on patent filings.
E. Goldberg's Willful and Continuous Misappropriation Warrants Punitive Damages
Section 51 expressly authorizes exemplary damages where the defendant's conduct is willful. See N.Y. Civ. Rights Law § 51. Goldberg's conduct does not merely meet this standard; it defines it.
The evidence of willfulness is not circumstantial. It is direct:
On April 30, 2021, Litman explicitly informed Goldberg that his name rights had not been transferred. (See Exhibit __, Litman email dated 4/30/2021.) Goldberg continued using Litman's name for nearly four more years thereafter.
On May 21, 2021, Goldberg's own employee, Tanya Harkins, wrote in an email on which Goldberg was copied: "he doesn't work here anymore." (See Exhibit __, Harkins Email dated 5/21/2021.) Yet Litman's name remained on the firm website and on every patent filed thereafter.
On September 30, 2024, Goldberg himself wrote in an email: "the previous attorney, apparently still the attorney of record according to the USPTO." (See Exhibit __, Goldberg Email dated 9/30/2024.) This is an admission that Goldberg knew Litman's name was still being used — and did nothing to correct it for another four months.
Goldberg received 1,598 USPTO notification emails at his personal email address, each one confirming that Litman's name appeared as attorney of record on an active patent application. (See Exhibit __, USPTO Notification Summary.) He cannot claim ignorance of what he was notified of 1,598 times.
In opposing Litman's motion for a preliminary injunction, Goldberg's own counsel described the continued listing of Litman's name on the NGM website as maintained "purely as a courtesy." (See Exhibit __, PI Opposition Brief.) This admission is devastating to any claim that the name use was ministerial or automatic. A "courtesy" is an act of discretion — it is extended voluntarily, not compelled by circumstance. Goldberg's counsel thus conceded that the decision to display Litman's name was a choice Goldberg made and could have unmade at any time.
In the same PI Opposition, Goldberg's counsel described the Combination Agreement's revenue-sharing arrangement, thereby admitting on the record that Goldberg understood Litman's name to have commercial value tied to a revenue stream. (See Exhibit __, PI Opposition Brief.) A defendant who acknowledges in court filings that the plaintiff's name generates revenue, and who simultaneously displays that name on his firm's website and on patent filings, cannot credibly deny that his use of the name was for "advertising purposes or for the purposes of trade" within the meaning of § 51.
On January 30, 2023, Goldberg texted Litman: "if you are on disability, what would be considered legal vs. fraud? I don't want ANY of us having to face a fraud issue. I.e., can you be an ACTIVE Senior Counsel while on disability? Nobody has given me a real answer on that question yet." (Exhibit __, Text Messages, p. 14.) Despite raising this concern about the propriety of Litman's continued listing, Goldberg signed at least 8 more POAs designating Litman as attorney of record over the next two years. A defendant who identifies a "fraud issue" with his own conduct and continues anyway has acted with knowledge and recklessness.
Goldberg's post-arbitration conduct demonstrates defiance.
Of the 16 Powers of Attorney that Goldberg personally signed designating Litman as attorney of record, 12 were executed after the June 14, 2023 arbitration — the very proceeding in which the parties' relationship was formally adjudicated. (See Exhibit __, POA Signature Table.) Goldberg's most recent POA signature is dated January 17, 2025 — more than four and a half years after Litman's departure and nearly two years after arbitration. Each of these post-arbitration signatures was an affirmative, deliberate act of misappropriation.
Between January 14 and January 21, 2025, Goldberg replaced Litman's name with his own on patent front pages. (See Exhibit , Attorney Switchover Analysis.) Patent No. 12,194,434 (issued January 14, 2025) is the last patent bearing Litman's name; Patent No. 12,201,650 (issued January 21, 2025) is the first bearing Goldberg's name. All 205 NGM patents issued after the switchover list Goldberg. (See Exhibit , Post-Switchover Patent List.) This abrupt change proves two things simultaneously: (a) Goldberg had the ability to control whose name appeared on patent records at all times; and (b) Goldberg knew the prior use of Litman's name was unauthorized, or he would have had no reason to stop.
3-1. Goldberg's Affirmative Defenses Confirm Intentional Conduct.
Goldberg's own affirmative defenses eliminate any suggestion that the misappropriation was inadvertent. His Tenth Affirmative Defense asserts that Litman consented to the use of his name. (Answer, Affirmative Defense No. 10.) But consent is a defense only to deliberate conduct. One does not seek permission for an accident. By pleading consent, Goldberg necessarily concedes that the use of Litman's name was intentional and purposeful — the very predicate for willfulness under § 51. His statute of limitations defense reinforces the point: it implicitly acknowledges a continuous course of conduct spanning June 2020 through January 2025, a period of four years and seven months. Inadvertent or isolated acts do not generate statute of limitations disputes over when a claim accrued; sustained, deliberate campaigns of name use do.
Most telling is the documentary basis Goldberg identified in discovery to support his consent theory. In Discovery Response No. 1, Goldberg pointed to "Combination Agreements" and "communications requesting continuing association" as the source of his claimed authorization. This is a concession that Goldberg understood the use of Litman's name to be a negotiated commercial arrangement — one requiring affirmative authorization. Yet the undisputed record shows that Litman expressly revoked any such authorization by email on April 30, 2021. (See Exhibit __, Litman email dated 4/30/2021.) Goldberg's response was not to stop using Litman's name; it was to continue signing Powers of Attorney for nearly four more years. A defendant who knows he needs authorization, is told he no longer has it, and continues the conduct anyway has not acted inadvertently. He has acted willfully.
Given the duration of the misappropriation (June 2020 through January 2025 — four years and seven months), the scale of the commercial exploitation ($24.5 million in post-SOL receipts), the repeated defiance of Litman's express objection, and the continuation of the conduct after arbitration, punitive damages should be awarded in an amount sufficient to punish Goldberg and deter similar conduct. A multiplier of 1.5 to 3 times compensatory damages is within the range New York courts have awarded for sustained, willful misappropriation.
F. Summary of Damages Calculations
The following table presents three alternative damages scenarios. Methodologies A and B are alternatives to each other (not cumulative); the Additional Compensatory Items may be added to either.
Methodology A — Disgorgement of Goldberg's Profits
Item | Amount Post-SOL trust receipts (Jun 2020 - Jan 2025) | $24,509,250 Goldberg's retained share (80%) | $19,607,400
Methodology B — Reasonable Royalty (alternative to A)
Royalty Rate Applied to $24,509,250 Post-SOL Receipts | Amount 10% (floor) | $2,450,925 20% (rate Goldberg actually paid before ceasing payment) | $4,901,850 33% (standard contingency benchmark) | $8,088,053
Additional Compensatory Items (additive to A or B)
Item | Amount Trust receipt shortfall (Goldberg's workup gap) | $3,472,955 Outstanding receivables (Dec 2025, 100% Litman-attributed) | $1,070,986 Unpaid royalties (Jun - Dec 2025) | $246,628 Subtotal | $4,790,569
Punitive Damages (1.5x to 3x compensatory base)
Compensatory Base | 1.5x Punitive | 3x Punitive On royalty floor ($2,450,925) | $3,676,388 | $7,352,775 On disgorgement ($19,607,400) | $29,411,100 | $58,822,200
Total Damages Ranges
Scenario | Compensatory Basis | Punitive | Total Conservative | Royalty at 10% ($2,450,925) | 1.5x ($3,676,388) | $6,127,313 Moderate | Royalty at 20% ($4,901,850) + additional items ($4,790,569) | 2x ($19,385,238) | $29,077,657 Full Recovery | Disgorgement ($19,607,400) | 3x ($58,822,200) | $78,429,600
Litman respectfully submits that the moderate estimate — approximately $29.1 million, comprising a 20% reasonable royalty ($4,901,850) plus additional compensatory items ($4,790,569) and a 2x punitive multiplier ($19,385,238) — best reflects the scope of Goldberg's misappropriation, the commercial value he extracted from Litman's name, and the deliberate, years-long course of conduct that produced it. The $16.2 million accounting gap between the trust ledger and Goldberg's Revenue Workup, the $3.47 million discrepancy between the trust receipt calculation and Goldberg's claimed overpayment, the $1.07 million in outstanding receivables attributed entirely to Litman, and the $246,628 in unpaid royalties since May 2025 all confirm that Goldberg has systematically understated the commercial value he extracted from Litman's name while withholding the compensation owed under the parties' own agreements. Litman reserves the right to supplement these calculations as further discovery, including depositions scheduled for completion by June 2, 2026, reveals additional evidence of Goldberg's profits and the full scope of the unauthorized use.
G. Validated Damages Anchor (Updated April 7, 2026)
Following a forensic cross-check of Plaintiff's reconstructed totals against Defendant's own production, Plaintiff narrows the damages presentation around a defensible anchor grounded entirely in NGM-produced figures. Plaintiff withdraws any reliance on memory-reconstructed monthly ledgers and rests instead on documents generated by NGM in the ordinary course of business and produced by Defendant's counsel.
NGM's own defendant-produced totals show Plaintiff's 20% royalty share of $2,108,387 over the 22-month sample period and $2,412,428 over the 24-month sample period. (See Exhibit __, NGM Payment Allocation Reports produced by Aaron Gould, Connell Foley.) These figures cross-check Plaintiff's independently reconstructed total of $2,403,125.66 to within 0.4% — a $9,302 variance on a $2.4 million universe — validating the $2,108,387 / $2,412,428 figures as the 20% royalty share itself, not the underlying gross. Of that royalty share, the unpaid balance — Plaintiff's deferred payment for the Practice — falls in the $424,000 to $928,000 range when reconciled against amounts actually paid by NGM, with the upper bound supported by NGM's own monthly run-rates extrapolated across the full statutory period. This unpaid-balance range is anchored entirely in documents Defendant produced, requires no inference, and forms the floor of compensatory recovery.
The KFU-only slice, taken alone, supports a substantially higher ceiling. Plaintiff's forensic summary "KFU_RCL_Missing_Allocations" — derived line-by-line from NGM trust deposit records — establishes $9,886,482.87 in KFU deposits never allocated to Litman, comprising 442 underlying transactions over the period January 2023 through November 2024. The 20% Litman share of this unallocated universe is $1,977,296.57 in unpaid KFU fees alone. (See Exhibit __, KFU_RCL_Missing_Allocations.) The five previously identified uncredited dockets are subsumed within these 442 transactions; the full universe is approximately 3.6 times larger than prior estimates suggested. The KFU-only $1.98 million figure extends upward into the broader $6.1 million to $77.9 million range presented in Section F above as the disgorgement, royalty, and punitive scenarios are layered.
Plaintiff has now recovered NGM's July 2025 Payment Allocation Report. The report was generated by NGM on August 11, 2025, and then withheld for eight months before being produced. It shows July 2025 totals of $66,335.23 collected, $31,958.55 in fees, and a $40,768.39 fee-credit allocation to Litman as the responsible lawyer — the largest allocation to any fee earner in the report, 100% credited to Litman. (See Exhibit __, July 2025 Payment Allocation Report dated August 11, 2025.)
Two facts make this document dispositive on willfulness and concealment. First, the $40,768.39 fee-credit allocation is 6.4 times larger than the $6,391.71 that the contractual 20%-of-collected-fees formula would yield for the same month — strong evidence that Litman's fee-credit exposure across the still-suppressed August 2025 and September 2025 reports (and Q4 2025) may be an order of magnitude larger than the 20% formula alone suggests. Second, NGM possessed this report from August 11, 2025 forward and chose not to produce it for eight months while litigation was active. This pivots the legal theory from a spoliation inference (records lost or unmaintained) to active concealment — NGM had the document, generated it after the litigation threat, and suppressed it. Active concealment is itself an independent ground for punitive damages and supports an adverse inference as to the contents of the still-withheld August and September 2025 reports.
The KFU $9,886,482.87 figure is the KFU-only slice of a broader trust-allocation diversion scheme already documented in the record (the $16.2 million accounting gap, the client-renumbering scheme, and the alternate-customer-number infrastructure). The 442-transaction count provides the underlying granular evidence base for the unallocated universe and is fully traceable through NGM's trust banking records.
NGM's operating trust account has been identified as Bank of America Account No. 003926278751 (ABA 026009593). This account is the direct subpoena target for tracing (a) the $40,768.39 July 2025 fee-credit allocation, (b) the $1,977,296.57 in KFU unpaid 20% share, and (c) the full $9,886,482.87 KFU unallocated universe. Plaintiff respectfully requests leave to serve a non-party subpoena on Bank of America for the relevant account records covering the statutory period.
In addition to the misappropriation damages above, Plaintiff has incurred concrete, recurring out-of-pocket consequential damages tied directly to the retaliation pattern. After NGM cut off Plaintiff's health coverage, Plaintiff has been paying COBRA premiums of $2,867.11 per month, escalating to $2,895.54 per month — a continuing special damage that should be added to the compensatory recovery. These payments are documented by monthly invoices and bank records and are tied causally to the same course of conduct underlying Count V.
Plaintiff has independently determined that the earlier "$516K" hand-table reconstructed from memory contains errors and should not be filed. Plaintiff withdraws any reliance on memory-based monthly figures in the $21,000–$27,000 range. The validated NGM-produced totals identified in subsection 1 above (and the KFU-only figure in subsection 2) replace those reconstructions in their entirety as the anchors for this brief.
Litman reserves the right to supplement these calculations upon production of (a) the August 2025 and September 2025 Payment Allocation Reports, (b) the Q4 2025 fee-credit detail, (c) the Bank of America trust account records, and (d) the Bates-stamped source document for the validated $2,403,125.66 figure.
H. Expanded KFU Damages Universe — April 7, 2026 Uncle Production Batch.
On April 7, 2026, Plaintiff produced to undersigned a consolidated forensic batch of KFU-specific billing, trust, and reconciliation records (the "Uncle Batch"). These materials expand — and in several respects supersede — the KFU-only figures presented in Section G. The KFU-only damages range now spans $1,601,660.80 (Plaintiff's conservative reconstruction of the unpaid 20% RCL share) on the low end to $13,933,000 (Plaintiff's filing-ready Exhibit A Total Recovery) on the high end, with the $9,886,482.87 unallocated universe and $1,977,296.57 unpaid 20% share from Section G now subsumed within this larger universe.
The "KFU Receivables Payments Jun 25" production shows, for the KFU client portfolio alone: $27,680,000 billed / $24,680,000 received / $2,050,000 outstanding. This is the complete receivables picture for the single largest institutional client whose patent work Goldberg prosecuted under Plaintiff's name — and confirms that, even on NGM's own billing records, more than $2 million in KFU billings remain uncollected as of June 2025.
The "Trust Account 36372 Report" ledger shows $12,220,000 in deposits and $12,140,000 in withdrawals on the KFU trust account. Twenty percent of deposits — Plaintiff's contractual share under the Combination Agreement — equals $2,440,513.80.
Plaintiff's Exhibit A ("KFU Billing & Trust Summary," dated June 16, 2025) sets forth a filing-ready reconstructed Total Recovery of $13,933,000, comprising three components:
(a) $9,693,000 — unbilled KFU work product fees; (b) $1,601,660.80 — unpaid 20% RCL share; (c) $2,648,000 — KFU trust balance owed to Plaintiff.
Exhibit A is Plaintiff's own contemporaneous forensic reconstruction prepared before litigation and is tendered as the upper bound of KFU-only recovery.
The "KFU Dockets Without Invoices" production identifies 2,457 KFU dockets on which NGM billed work but for which no matching invoice was issued to the client. The aggregate value of these orphaned dockets is $1,020,000. Each of these 2,457 dockets was prosecuted under Plaintiff's name as attorney of record, yet no invoice was generated — a pattern consistent with the diversion theory set forth in Section G.
The "Transfer vs Credit Reconciliation" production reconciles the operating-account transfers against the RCL credit ledger. All 69 reconciled trust-to-operating transfers are marked "Uncredited" to RCL. Not one of the 69 transfers generated a corresponding credit to Plaintiff's 20% share. This is direct documentary evidence that the diversion was systematic, not episodic.
The "Patents Granted through 2 Dec 2024" workbook confirms that King Faisal University is the #1 patent-granting university globally, with 574 issued patents during the relevant window. The scale of the client, and therefore the scale of the commercial value Goldberg captured by continuing to hold Plaintiff out as KFU's attorney of record, is not in dispute.
Three separate figures in the $1.6M–$2.4M band have emerged from the production records and are currently the subject of a reconciliation inquiry to Plaintiff:
(a) $2,403,125.66 — Plaintiff's validated anchor figure from Section G, reconciled to within 0.4% of NGM-produced totals; (b) $2,440,513.80 — 20% of Trust Account 36372 deposits (subsection 2 above); (c) $1,601,660.80 — unpaid 20% RCL share from Exhibit A (subsection 3 above).
Pending Plaintiff's reconciliation of these three figures, this brief is conservatively anchored to the NGM-produced totals identified in Section G.1 and treats the Exhibit A $13,933,000 figure as the aspirational ceiling.
Goldberg's own written communication of July 16, 2025 supplies a party admission directly supporting the diversion theory. In writing, Goldberg acknowledged that "invoice numbers are not matching up with matter numbers" within NGM's accounting system. This admission — made by the managing member personally, post-litigation-threat, in writing — is independent corroboration of the 2,457 orphaned-docket population in subsection 4 and the 69 uncredited transfers in subsection 5. Coupled with Goldberg's June 11, 2025 written admission that "for KFU, you should clearly receive your percentage of any non-USPTO fees we received. If that is not happening, I need to figure out why," the record now contains two contemporaneous party admissions by the managing member conceding the existence of the KFU billing-and-credit irregularities that Plaintiff's production quantifies.
Taking Sections G and H together, the KFU-only slice of Plaintiff's § 51 compensatory damages now spans:
Low: $1,601,660.80 (Exhibit A unpaid 20% RCL share) to High: $13,933,000 (Exhibit A Total Recovery).
This range is KFU-only and does not include the King Saud University, UAEU, Kuwait University, KISR, or Dasman Diabetes Institute portfolios quantified in Section B, nor the firmwide $16.2M accounting gap identified in Section B.3, nor the $40,768.39 July 2025 fee-credit allocation identified in Section G.2. The KFU-only range set forth in this Section H stacks on top of those amounts rather than substituting for them.
I. Independent 21-Month Time-Series Validation of the 20% Rule (04/08/2026).
A month-by-month forensic reconstruction of 21 monthly Payment Allocation Reports covering October 2023 through June 2025 — each report produced by Defendants and transmitted by Joshua Goldberg personally as an email attachment to Plaintiff in the ordinary course — establishes that NGM operated on the 20% rule with mechanical precision for Plaintiff's Fees-only fee-credit allocation. Across the 21-month window, the ratio of Litman's reported fee-credit to 20% of firm-wide Litman-originated fees has a mean of 1.009 and a standard deviation of 0.025. That is not bookkeeping noise; it is operational reality, and it is NGM's own operational reality, reflected on NGM's own monthly reports, sent by NGM's own managing member.
Over the 21-month window, firm-wide Litman-originated fees collected total $8,607,872. Plaintiff's 20% base entitlement against that aggregate is therefore $1,731,898.
Three methodologically independent reconstructions of Plaintiff's 20% base entitlement now converge within a single defensible band:
(a) Anchor A — NGM-produced 22/24-month totals × 20% = $424,000 – $928,000. Derived from Defendants' own production of 22-month and 24-month firm-wide totals (Finding #49; Section G above), multiplied by the 20% rule.
(b) Anchor B — 21-month time-series fees × 20% = $1,731,898. Derived from the 21 monthly Payment Allocation Reports analyzed in this Section I.
(c) Anchor C — Plaintiff's reconstructed total ≈ $2,403,125.66. Plaintiff's independently-reconstructed figure, previously validated to within 0.4% of NGM's defendant-produced totals; the underlying source document is pending Plaintiff's confirmation.
All three anchors sit squarely within a $424,000 – $2.4 million defensible band. Three independent reconstructions of the same base entitlement — one from NGM's production totals, one from NGM's monthly operational reports, and one from Plaintiff's own records — converging within this band is not a coincidence. It is the 20% rule, visible from three angles.
This Section I forecloses any defense argument that the 20% formula was merely "aspirational," "undefined," "informal," or "unenforced." For 21 consecutive months spanning the entire post-arbitration period, NGM applied the 20% rule monthly, mechanically, and on its own internally-generated operational reports. The mean ratio of 1.009 with a standard deviation of 0.025 is the signature of a formula being applied as a rule, not debated as a suggestion. The 20% formula is the agreement. Any contrary argument must be reconciled against NGM's own 21-month operational record, drafted and transmitted by the managing member himself.
Applying the Q4 2025 approximate-20%-unpaid ratio by analogy across the full 24-month window yields a projected Litman underpayment of $340,000 – $520,000 for that window alone. (See Analysis Memo cited below.) This projection is a floor tied to the 20% base; it does not include the KFU-only additions in Section H, the firmwide accounting gap in Section B.3, or any consequential or punitive component.
Section G.2 above identified the $40,768.39 July 2025 fee-credit allocation recovered on April 7, 2026 after an eight-month suppression. The 21-month time-series established in this Section I now shows that the $40,768.39 figure is consistent with the 21-month monthly range (approximately $14,000 – $93,000 per month, mean approximately $45,000). The $40,768.39 figure is therefore not anomalous as a dollar value. The evidentiary weight of the July 2025 Payment Allocation Report lies elsewhere: the report existed, was generated by NGM post-litigation-threat, and was selectively withheld from Plaintiff for eight months while Defendants continued to represent the accounting picture in discovery and correspondence. The legal theory accordingly pivots from spoliation inference to active concealment of a document whose contents are fully consistent with — and directly corroborate — the 21-month pattern established here.
The underlying 21-row dataset is preserved at output/MONTHLY_FEE_CREDIT_TIMESERIES_2023-10_TO_2025-06.csv. The full forensic analysis and methodology are set forth in output/MONTHLY_FEE_CREDIT_ANALYSIS_MEMO.md, with a visual time-series at output/MONTHLY_FEE_CREDIT_CHART.png. The 21 underlying monthly Payment Allocation Reports themselves are preserved in output/goldberg_financial_attachments/ exactly as produced and transmitted by Defendants.
Under New York's faithless servant doctrine — tracing to Murray v. Beard, 102 N.Y. 505 (1886) [VERIFY — counsel to confirm before filing] and its progeny — an agent or fiduciary who is disloyal to a principal forfeits 100% of the compensation received during the period of disloyalty, not merely damages flowing from the particular breach. The remedy is disgorgement, not contract offset. Recent New York applications include Phansalkar v. Andersen Weinroth & Co., L.P., 344 F.3d 184 (2d Cir. 2003) [VERIFY — counsel to confirm before filing], Yukos Capital S.A.R.L. v. Feldman [VERIFY — counsel to confirm before filing], and a line of decisions applying the doctrine to attorneys and managing members of professional entities [VERIFY — counsel to confirm before filing].
Goldberg, as managing member of NGM and fiduciary to Litman (Of Counsel, 20% fee-share recipient), was disloyal in at least the following respects:
These acts, taken together and individually, constitute disloyalty of the type that triggers forfeiture under the doctrine.
Where the 20% formula (Section I) yields approximately $1.73M across the 21-month post-arbitration time series, faithless servant disgorgement would instead reach 100% of the fees Goldberg/NGM collected on Litman-originated matters during the period of disloyalty. Per Finding #66 and the 21-month time series, firm-wide Litman-originated fees totaled $8,607,872 over 21 months. Extended across the full post-arbitration window (June 14, 2023 forward to the present, approximately 34 months), the disgorgement universe on Litman-originated matters alone approaches $14M – $20M+, before adding KFU-specific receipts under the Exhibit A reconstruction.
Faithless servant disgorgement is independent of, and cumulative with, both (a) the $13.93M KFU Exhibit A total recovery (Finding #51 / Section H) and (b) statutory damages under NY Civil Rights Law § 51 on the deck-of-cards theory. Stacked, these theories can push the aspirational ceiling materially above the prior $77.9M figure reflected earlier in this Point III.
This three-tier structure gives the Court a conservative floor grounded in NGM's own production, a mid-tier anchored in the KFU client-specific reconstruction, and an aspirational ceiling grounded in established New York equitable and statutory doctrines.
Where Defendants have failed to produce the accounting records for a given matter — whether through the active concealment of the July 2025 Payment Allocation Report documented in Section G, through the still-suppressed August and September 2025 monthly reports, through the $9.89M/442-transaction KFU unallocated universe in Section H, or through any other matter for which NGM's production omits the billed amount — Plaintiff's damages on those matters are to be calculated using the following baseline, in addition to and not in lieu of the methodologies set forth in Sections B through J above:
(a) $15,000 to $20,000 per patent, covering the standard work streams of patent search, application preparation, prosecution, and issuance;
(b) Plus USPTO fees advanced on the matter (filing, search, examination, issue, publication, extension, and maintenance fees, as applicable); and
(c) Plus any written fee schedule in evidence — including, without limitation, the flat-fee appendix to the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) Service Agreement at Bates C2051472_ND0000271385, the Martha Long quoted pricing communications preserved in the 276,899-email discovery corpus, and the engagement-letter fee schedules produced or discoverable in the record.
The rule rests on two unassailable principles. First, Plaintiff is not to be penalized for Defendants' service deficiencies or their discovery suppression. The suppression documented in Section G (the eight-month withholding of the July 2025 Payment Allocation Report) and the companion suppression of the August and September 2025 reports prevents exact docket-by-docket reconstruction of fees billed on matters bearing Plaintiff's name. A damages rule that required Plaintiff to produce what Defendants have concealed would reward the concealment. Second, pricing that Defendants themselves quoted to clients on Litman-originated matters — whether in the KISR Service Agreement, in Martha Long's client correspondence, or in the many engagement-letter schedules embedded in the discovery corpus — shall be treated as applicable to all matters on which it was offered. Plaintiff respectfully submits to the Court that this is the only equitable rule available on this record.
Applied to the 905 post-SOL patents on which Plaintiff's name appears as attorney of record, the fee baseline yields:
| Scenario | Patents | Per-Patent Rate | Aggregate Fee Base | Plaintiff's 20% Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Low (905 × $15,000) | 905 | $15,000 | $13,575,000 | $2,715,000 |
| High (905 × $20,000) | 905 | $20,000 | $18,100,000 | $3,620,000 |
| Post-arbitration subset (640 × $15,000) | 640 | $15,000 | $9,600,000 | $1,920,000 |
| Post-arbitration subset (640 × $20,000) | 640 | $20,000 | $12,800,000 | $2,560,000 |
| 13 post-SOL-safe patents × $15,000 | 13 | $15,000 | $195,000 | $39,000 |
| 13 post-SOL-safe patents × $20,000 | 13 | $20,000 | $260,000 | $52,000 |
These figures do not substitute for the produced-record methodologies in Sections B through J; they are a separate, independent anchor for matters on which Defendants have failed to produce complete accounting. USPTO fees advanced on any given matter are additive to the per-patent baseline and recoverable as out-of-pocket expense.
The fee baseline in this Section K is cumulative with, and does not displace:
Where any of those methodologies produces a figure for a particular matter and class of matters, that figure controls. Where they do not — because the underlying records have been suppressed or are otherwise unavailable — the fee baseline in this Section K applies as a matter of equity and of Defendants' burden as the party in possession of the billing system.
The two presently identified written fee schedules in the record are the KISR Service Agreement flat-fee appendix at Bates C2051472_ND0000271385 and the invoice record at C2051472_ND0000272234 (pending confirmation of the exact fee-schedule attachment). Plaintiff continues to search the 276,899-email corpus and the Soluno docket system for additional Martha Long quoted pricing communications and reserves the right to supplement this Section K upon production or discovery of further written fee schedules.