Viking Video & Music sues Summit Community Bank over math error

CHARLESTON -- Viking Video & Music, Inc. is suing Summit Community Bank, Inc. after it claims the bank made an error that caused it from being awarded a license for video lottery terminals.

On Feb. 11, 2011, Viking anticipated submitting a bid to the West Virginia Lottery Commission in an attempt to obtain licenses for 70 limited video lottery terminals at a bid price of $9,160 per terminal and approached Summit to obtain financing for the bid, according to a complaint filed Oct. 22 in Kanawha Circuit Court.

Viking claims the defendant made an error when preparing an Irrevocable Letter of Credit by erroneously multiplying 70 terminals by $9,106 instead of $9,160, and as a result, the Lottery Commission did not award Viking a license for the 70 terminals.

Summit voluntarily assumed the duty of performing the mathematical calculation and placing it on the bid, according to the suit, and in preparing the Irrevocable Letter of Credit, made the mathematical error. In doing so, the amount placed on the bid was $637,420 and inconsistent with the bid price per machine.

Viking claims as a result of the error, it has incurred substantial monetary losses.

Implied within the contract between Viking and Summit was a duty by Summit to undertake its obligations in a reasonably prudent manner and without negligence, according to the suit, however, Summit breached its duty by miscalculating the total amount of the bid and Irrevocable Letter of Credit.

Viking claims Summit had a duty to perform all tasks relating to or on behalf of Viking in a reasonably prudent manner and breached its duty by negligently creating documents which contained erroneous information.

By assuming the duty of calculating the amount of the bid and letter of credit and preparing the documents associated, Summit was required to perform that duty in a reasonably prudent manner and was negligent in doing so, according to the suit.

Viking claims the defendant’s wrongful conduct caused it to incur damages for having to obtain licenses for 70 terminals at the matching price of $15,003 per terminal for a total of $1,050,200, which was $409,010 greater than the amount for which it should have received the licenses if no error had been made.

The additional $409,010 could have been used to bid for other terminals, which would have generated additional income for 10 years, according to the suit.

Viking is seeking compensatory damages. It is being represented by Michael J. Del Giudice.

The case has been assigned to Circuit Judge James C. Stucky.

Kanawha Circuit Court case number: 12-C-2134