Seal Beach Attorney Owes Big Money to Former U.S. Swimmer, Plans Appeal

Seal Beach, CA--A local attorney said he intends to appeal a verdict against him in a lawsuit filed by a one-time Olympic swimming hopeful who accused him of breach of fiduciary duty.

Former Olympic Swimming hopeful, Dagny Knutson, won a $617,810 award from an Orange County Superior Court jury late Thursday in her lawsuit against Seal Beach based attorney Richard J. Foster. He will be appealing the verdict, stating in a City News Service interview that the jury issued a verdict based on emotional factors and not facts.

"Sometimes juries make mistakes and this is one of them," Foster said.

According to Robert Allard, Dagny Knutson's attorney, the swimmer was "used, abused, manipulated and betrayed by a powerful group of aquatic insiders" which they named to include Richard Foster, Mark Schubert, Chuck Weilgus and Evan Morgenstein.

"This is full vindication for her," Allard stated. "After what she has been through, she deserves it.''

Jurors awarded Knutson $217,800 for the loss of housing and education benefits, $250,000 for pain and suffering and $150,000 for future pain and suffering.

Former Olympic champion swimmer Janet Evans testified in the trial for Foster.

Knutson reportedly hired Foster in the fall of 2011 when her contract with USA Swimming was cancelled after the coach who recruited her, Schubert, was fired.

Dagny Knutson was one of the most decorated swimmers in the country when she graduated high school in 2010, according to her attorneys. She intended to keep swimming at Auburn University, but Schubert convinced her to go pro and give up her five-year scholarship.

The plan was to train Knutson for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. She enrolled at Fullerton Community College in 2010 and trained with coach Sean Hutchison.

Knutson's attorneys say Schubert was fired as he supposedly tried to have a private investigator take "compromising pictures'' of Hutchison in a "suspected effort to take over the Olympic training center.'' Knutson's agent, Morgenstein, encouraged the teen to hire Foster to enforce her cancelled contract.

The swimmer's attorneys argued that Foster "worked against'' Knutson while helping Schubert and others with USA Swimming.

Foster renegotiated a new contract for Knutson, which then included new terms that required her to stay in the top three in the country or top 25 globally among swimmers. If she failed she would lose her $2,500 a month housing stipend and educational benefits.

Nancy Hogshead-Makar, a former Olympic gold medalist, testified that the goals set Knutson up for failure. Knutson failed to make the terms of the new contract within a year, owing "primarily to an eating disorder that she developed,'' her attorneys argued.

City News Service