US billionaire wins child-support case

Aug 28, 2010, 1:39 GMT

Los Angeles - One of the richest men in America has been cleared of the need to pay his adult children retroactive child support following a nasty legal fight, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday.

Property developer Donald Bren has an estimated net worth of 12 billion dollars thanks to his ownership of Irvine Co and ranks 16th in Forbes magazine's list of the 400 richest Americans.

His children Christie Bren, 22, and David Bren, 18, were seeking retroactive child support of 400,000 dollars a month each, for a total of 134 million dollars, contending that out-of-court payments Bren made to their mother, Jennifer McKay Gold, were well below what would have been awarded by a family court.

In the trial, Bren, 78, was described as a virtually absentee father who never attended school events, parent-teacher meetings or even the children's births.

But the jury needed only three hours to decide that Bren did not own his children any more than the 9 million dollars he has already paid in child support, plus his commitment to pay for their educations until the age of 25.

An attorney for the plaintiffs said they planned to appeal the verdict.