A Paoli couple won $10 million in their lawsuit against an international comic book grading giant

Matt and Emily Meyers had become so good at restoring old comic books that they were accused by the world’s largest and most influential comic book company of falsifying their results. It led to such a sharp decrease in their business that the married Paoli couple decided to sue the company, Certified Guaranty Co., for defamation.

Amid accusations from the comic company that the Meyerses’ valuable rare comic books were fake — untrue rumors that they said were spread through their industry — the couple was in “survival mode,” said their attorney Lane Jubb Jr., putting their livelihoods at stake as they were forced to sell their restored comics below value and issue refunds to other comic book collectors.

But after an eight-year legal battle, a Philadelphia jury last month sided with the Meyerses, ordering the comic book appraisal giant to pay the couple $10 million, and rendering a verdict likely to reverberate throughout the hobby industry, comic aficionados say.

Comic books are appraised — in the industry it’s called “graded” — by companies such as CGC, a leader in its industry, as a way to insure and value them. And criteria can vary depending on who does the evaluation.

“It’s really an educated opinion,” said Tate Ottati, owner of Tate’s Comics — a renowned 31-year-old comic and pop culture superstore in Florida.

But in the Meyerses’ case — tried in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas before Judge Abbe Fletman — the couple said the opinion devaluing their comics was just plain wrong, and cost them business as the head of CGC maligned their work to others in the close-knit comics community.

“The practice of grading comic books has become an integral part of our hobby since the early aughts, but when CGC, the company that spearheaded grading in the first place, is found [liable] in a lawsuit of this magnitude, it sends shock waves through the hobby,” said Kevin Polidano, owner of the Comic Doctor Inc., an authorized CGC dealer based out of Ontario, Canada. “The $10 million win is a real wake-up call to all companies, really. Keeping client information private is sacrosanct. Unfortunately, CGC had to learn this lesson the hard way.”

Neither the CGC nor its attorneys responded to request for comment.

In the comic book space, there’s an entire world of collectors, resellers, conservation specialists, and restorers.

Restoring comic books can be a fickle practice, experts say, because too much cosmetic work can sometimes depreciate a comic’s value instead of increasing it. But sometimes — depending on the extent of a comic’s age and damage — it’s necessary, particularly for rare, valuable books.

Depending on their grade, often issued by the CGC, restored comics can sell for hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars. Occasionally, extremely rare comic books can be priced in the millions.

“Comic book restoration usually refers to permanent changes made to the comic book that will enhance its appearance,” Polidano of the Comic Book Doctor said. “But unlike most other collectibles and fine art, ‘restoration’ is considered a bad word when it comes to comic book collecting.”

For that reason, it’s a difficult practice that requires a high level of skill.

“Comic book restoration is hard to do right,” Ottati said. “The restorer can be fixing damage from all sorts of things, such as rips, pieces or pages missing, and water damage.”

Matt Meyers first began restoring comics in 2013, and through research of different techniques, created a new way to restore comics by individually painting each dot on the comic book page, giving the art a “more precise” look.

The method was so successful that Emily Meyers quit her 9-to-5 job as a cosmetic dermatology technician and learned how to restore comics.

The Meyerses’ relationship with CGC began with comic book submissions and a phone call with its president and primary grader, Matt Nelson.

Initially, the Meyerses’ relationship with CGC was “great,” according to court documents, but that changed after a 2015 meeting about “Batman #1.”

The Meyerses met with Nelson for advice on how to best restore the comic, which Nelson said was one of the best restorations of “Batman #1″ he’d seen, according to court documents.

Nelson told the Meyerses that the Batman comic would receive the highest grade ever for a book of its rarity, so long as they took Nelson’s advice, according to court documents. The Meyerses followed the advice, but when their copy of “Batman 1″ was sent back to the Meyerses, the grade didn’t change and the value of the book stayed the same, according to court documents.

In the same meeting, a different comic submitted by the Meyerses, “Amazing Fantasy 15,” experienced a similar fate: A higher grade was promised post-restoration, but the final score was worse than promised, according to court filings.

The Meyerses questioned the grades they had received, but Nelson discouraged the two from trying to attain a second opinion on the score, according to court documents.

The Meyerses’ work with CGC effectively ended two years later, when Nelson cast doubt on their work restoring “Detective Comics 29.”

In June 2015, the Meyerses submitted the book to CGC to grade after they restored it under Nelson’s direction, but it had received a much lower grade than anticipated because of Nelson’s suspicions it had been “re-glossed,” according to court filings.

Re-glossing is a process that restores a comic book cover’s shine using a spray treatment to make it look newer or retouch color breaks from wear, Ottati explained. It’s considered a permanent change to a comic, and can come with negative connotations among the comic book restoration and collector community.

The Meyerses said this was the first instance in which they believed CGC was “seeking to destroy their business,” according to court documents.

“We were getting frustrated because we’ve been honest with [him] every step of the way,” Emily Meyers said. “He wouldn’t believe us.”

To prove he was telling the truth, Matt Meyers sent the comic to a metallurgical laboratory to test the book for gloss, where findings indicated there was no gloss on the comic, according to court documents.

After that, the couple stopped submitting comics to CGC and switched to Comic Book Certification Service (CBCS), whose head grader, Steve Borock, was the former head grader for CGC, according to court documents.

CBCS graded the “Detective Comics 29″ high, and the Meyerses sold it for $24,000. The buyer was happy with the purchase — that is, until the broker for the sale went to Nelson, who told them the book was not worth the money, according to court documents.

The buyer felt “defrauded and overcharged,” and the Meyerses ended up returning $3,000 to the buyer, according to court documents.

At the 2015 San Diego Comic Con, Nelson told James Allen, managing director at Heritage Auctions, the world’s largest collectible auctioneer, that the Meyerses’ books “felt like ‘recreations,’” according to court documents.

Allen then told the couple that because the Meyerses and CGC were no longer working together, it would be “difficult” for Heritage to sell their work, according to court documents.

The defamation continued on CGC’s online forum, where Nelson broadcasted “false rumors,” which CGC’s customers consequently spread to other collectors, and the Meyerses were largely blacklisted by their industry, according to court documents.

By then, the couple said they knew they needed to take the matter to court to clear their names.

“It was so pervasive in the community that we knew at that point, unless we change the message at the source, we were done for,” Emily Meyers said.

When the couple filed their complaint in December 2016, Jubb, the Meyerses’ attorney, said he didn’t fully understand the gravity of the lawsuit, lacking understanding of the comics business.

But as Jubb learned more about the industry, the collectors’ preferences, and the overall impact CGC had on them, he understood how aspersions from the comic grading giant could tank the couples’ restoration reputation, and thusly, their career.

“If they tried to sell a restored banana, it would be accused of being a rubber one,” Jubb said.

Last month, the Meyerses had their long-awaited day in court when the case went to trial — during which a courtroom observer nearly fainted at the sight of their comic book being presented as evidence, and a closing argument referencing the Eagles-Cowboys rivalry.

In urging the Philadelphia jury to side with his clients, Jubb said he likened the Meyerses’ experience of being shunned in the comic world “after you accuse them of desecrating comics” to going to an Eagles game wearing a Cowboys jersey. “[You’d] be lucky to just get a beer in the back,” he said.

After 50 minutes of deliberations, the jury decided unanimously, awarding the Meyerses $5 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages.

Experts say the verdict could have a ripple effect throughout the industry.

As for what’s next for the couple, they are still trying to finally come down and relax from this “emotional” journey’s end, according to Emily Meyers.

“We’re gonna hang out with our four Pomeranians and spend time with our supportive families and friends that have been there for us this whole time,” Matt Meyers said.