A stockbroker ordered to pay over $100,000 to her former employers Lines Overseas Management in March, won an Appeals Court decision overturning the debt yesterday.

Carol Green was sued by her former employers last fall for $110,643.26 which LOM claimed was outstanding on loans made to Ms Green on two margin accounts she held with the company.

Margin accounts allow a client to buy stock partially from his or her own cash and partially with brokerage firm funds. The stock is held as collateral against the debts.

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal ruled that LOM had failed to prove, as was their duty, the exact amount of money Ms Green owed the firm during their original legal battle.

Ms Green worked for the money management firm on a commission basis only between April 1995 and December 1997.

The court noted that she was an experienced broker of some 20 years who had previously worked in financial centres such as New York, Chicago and London.

Toward the end of her employment with LOM, however, the company claimed she ran up trading losses, that at one point ran as high as $386,000, and overdrew her cash position on two accounts, one in her own name and a second in the name of a company she registered in Bahamas.

After Ms Green failed to repay the debt, LOM went into the accounts and sold the securities off, which cancelled out all but the $110,000 the firm sought in court.

The nasty legal action last fall also involved a countersuit by Ms Green in which she claimed LOM president Brian Lines had assaulted her and sought damages for breach of contract and wrongful withdrawal of money from her account, however.

In March of this year, Justice Vincent Meerabux said LOM demonstrated “upon a balance of probabilities” that Ms Green owed $110,643.26 and interest of $29,850.49 to LOM and dismissed her countsuit.

Ms Green's attorney Mark Diel of Marshall Diel & Myers successfully appealed only the financial aspect of that decision last week in the Court of Appeal.

“(N)o appeal is brought against the dismissal of the defence and counterclaim,” the written judgment from judges Sir James Astwood, Sir Derek Cons and Peter Clough issued yesterday said.

“This appeal has given us a great deal of anxiety,” the judges noted.

The judges said Ms Green was, by her contracts, indebted to LOM for any amount that may remain outstanding on the accounts, which have since been closed.

But they questioned the dollar figure attributed by the company.

“It would seem, with respect to her, that it is not unlikely that some amount may so remain, but it may not be the amount that was claimed,” the judgment said.

It continued: “(Q)uestions now remain unanswered, in particular, did LOM have the right to unilaterally sell the assets and were they entitled to interest, and if so, at what rate? This latter could make a difference of at least nearly $30,000.”

Saying the amount LOM was seeking from Ms Green was insufficiently established, the Court of Appeal set aside the previous judgment and allowed the appeal.

“In the end we find ourselves forced to fall back on that most elementary principle, that of the burden of proving his case rests fairly and squarely on the Plaintiff,” said the decision.

“LOM sued for specific, liquidated sums. They have not proved them, nor lesser amounts.

“They are therefore not entitled to judgment.”

LOM were represented in the appeal by attorney Saul Froomkin of Mello Jones & Martin.