The $1 million fishermen's lawsuit against the Ciulla family and its seafood display auction was filed in U.S. District Court on Aug. 10, three weeks before Kristian Kristiansen acquired the assets of the Gloucester waterfront business.
But Kristiansen said Tuesday that, over the course of the negotiations, the Ciullas never informed him that their business was tainted, devalued by the lawsuit.
"They did not disclose that there was a lawsuit against them," Kristiansen told the Times Tuesday. "I was blindsided."
"I could have stuck my hands in the air and sued them straight away," he added. But he has not, saying that, instead, he has tried to look past the Ciullas' alleged oversight and take the enterprise forward, free of taint and transparent for the good of the fleet.
John Colucci, the Beverly attorney who represented Kristiansen in negotiations with the Ciullas' purchase and sale law firm, Burns & Levenson, confirmed Kristiansen's assertion Tuesday, adding that the failure to disclose violated a warranty in the contract that there were no outstanding lawsuits against the business.
Read the complete article by Richard Gaines in The Gloucester Times