Star fixed-income manager Jeffrey Gundlach, charged by former employer Trust Company of the West (TCW) with breaching his fiduciary duty and stealing trade secrets, each claimed victory as the case ended in a mixed verdict.  The jury awarded Mr. Gundlach $66.7 million in back-pay, but found him and 3 co-defendants liable for taking trade secrets from TWC and breaching his fiduciary duty to investors.  They awarded no damages to TCW on the breach claim.  The judge in the case will determine the damages in the trade secret claim. The jurors needed just 2 days of deliberations, after sitting through the 2-month case.  The trial, which took place in Los Angeles, captivated the mutual fund world. TCW had claimed that Mr. Gundlach and his associates took client information and proprietary trading systems in order to set up a competing firm, DoubleLine Capital, after he was fired in December 2009.  The jury found that Mr. Gundlach had misappropriated that data, but found that he had not acted maliciously in doing so.  However, it was an important symbolic win for TCW when the jury found Mr. Gundlach and his co-defendants liable.  "We came in here focused on basic principles and wrongful conduct. We brought three claims, and the jury found liability on all three claims," said Susan Estrich, a lawyer for TCW.  Mr. Gundlach’s lawyers saw the $66.7 million award as a victory. Regardless of what the lawyers for each side said, some industry watchers viewed the lack of damages for TCW’s claims as favoring Mr. Gundlach slightly - although neither side had landed a knockout blow. Messy Divorce. "This divorce has been messy, and it’s a good thing that the investment teams can now go back to managing portfolios without this distraction hanging over them," said Miriam Sjoblom, a bond fund analyst with Morningstar.  "To the extent DoubleLine shareholders were worried about damages from this suit impacting the resources of the firm, this verdict should assuage those fears." Mr. Gundlach was known as "the bond king" at TCW, where he worked for 24 years and was named fixed-income manager of the year in 2006 by Morningstar for his fund specializing in mortgage-backed securities.  Yet, as his star rose, former colleagues say Mr. Gundlach’s ego grew as well, and witnesses in the trial described him as a "cultural cancer" who berated colleagues and disparaged his bosses. Life for Gundlach, TCW After the Split. After being fired from TCW in December 2009, Mr. Gundlach got DoubleLine up and running quickly, bringing more than 40 members of his fixed-income team over to the new firm.  It has grown quickly, amassing $15 billion in assets in less than 2 years. TCW, a unit of the French bank Société Générale, struggled in the immediate wake of Mr. Gundlach’s departure.  The firm lost $25 billion in assets after Mr. Gundlach left, even though it acquired a competitor, Metropolitan West, to replace his team.  Today, TCW is on the mend.  It has about 600 employees, and the firm’s assets under management have grown to $120 billion.  In a fact sheet distributed to reporters during the trial, the firm claimed that it has gained "a more collegial, collaborative workplace culture" since firing Mr. Gundlach. Mr. Gundlach, a math prodigy who has claimed he only does The New York Times crossword puzzle on Saturdays and Sundays because the other days are too easy, said in an interview last month that undergoing an ugly legal battle with his longtime firm had damaged his view of human nature. For further details, go to [Dealbook, 9/16/11, "Gundlach Found Liable..."].