In a legal war involving the $350 million trust of the late Herbalife founder Mark Hughes, a Los Angeles judge has ruled that the mother of Hughes' heir cannot make a case for sexual harassment against one of the trustees.

Suzan Hughes, the third of Mark Hughes' four wives, is raising their son Alex, who will inherit the Herbalife fortune when he turns 35. She has repeatedly accused the trustees of the Hughes Family Trust of withholding discretionary funds from Alex.

According to a suit that Suzan Hughes filed last year, former Herbalife executive Christopher Pair sexually harassed her after she asked him and the other two trustees to give her $160,000 so she could pay for Alex's two-month summer vacation in a rented Malibu beach home. The trustees had agreed to only one month.

During a June 27, 2005 phone conversation, the complaint alleged, Pair said she could get the second month "if she would be nice to him" and invited her to call him at home "when you're ready to give me what I want." When they met at a public function later the same day, he allegedly told her that "I'm going to fuck you one way or another."

Superior Court Judge Andrea K. Richey summarily dismissed the case this week, finding no triable issues under any theory of sexual harassment.

There was no "quid pro quo" harassment, she said in her order, because the trustees had unanimously decided to deny the two-month rental "before any of the allegedly sexually harassing comments were even made by co-trustee Pair."

As for "pervasive or severe" harassment, Richey held that Suzan Hughes cannot pursue a claim based on a few verbal innuendoes during a brief phone call and "one isolated, vulgar remark lasting seconds in a crowded, public place."

Suzan Hughes is still battling the trust in various probate court proceedings. One attorney has called the litigation the legal equivalent of "World War III."

By Matthew Heller
9/8/06