I'm working through the expected value calculations for Issue A. The briefing costs $90,000 upfront, and if there's a 70% reversal, we face a $300,000 remand cost but have a 60% chance of recovering $2,000,000—giving us an expected value of $630,000 from that branch.

For Issue B, the reversal probability is 35% with a 55% recovery rate on $4,000,000 in damages, minus $450,000 in costs, yielding $612,500 before subtracting the $60,000 briefing fee for a net of $552,500.

Issue C is more complex: we're comparing the baseline of keeping $2.1M against appealing. If affirmed (40%), we keep $2.1M. If reversed (60%), we face a $500,000 retrial cost but have a 75% chance of winning $3,000,000, netting $1,750,000 on reversal. The overall expected value is $1,890,000 minus the $50,000 briefing cost, which is $1,840,000—but that's $260,000 worse than doing nothing, so this issue actually destroys value.

Ranking the three: B at $552,500 beats A at $540,000, which beats C at negative $260,000. Since A and B together cost exactly $150,000 and fit the budget, we pursue both. Adding C would exceed the budget and is value-destructive anyway. One caveat: if C reverses, it might trigger a consolidated retrial affecting A and B, but I'm working with the supplied numbers as given. Also worth noting that since the defendant hasn't cross-appealed, the $2.1M judgment stands unless Helix attacks it through Issue C—that's the key asymmetry here.

Issue B's reversal probability is the lowest at 35%, but it has the highest expected value because of the massive $4M upside; reversal probability is just one of five multipliers in the calculation. For Issue C to break even, Helix would need roughly an 89% win probability at retrial instead of the current 75% estimate, or alternatively, the gross damages would need to be substantially higher to justify the appeal costs and reversal risk.

There's also a counterintuitive dynamic here: a higher reversal probability actually makes Issue C worse, since reversal is a multiplier on a negative payoff. And the chair's reasoning contains a critical error—the jury didn't award $3M net; the judgment is $2.1M after reduction, and an appellate reversal means starting from scratch with fresh litigation risk, costs, and the possibility of total loss, not simply striking the reduction and entering $3M.

At retrial, the expected gross is still $3M (75% × $3M = $2.25M), which is only $150,000 better than the current $2.1M judgment before accounting for the $500,000 retrial cost—leaving a net expected loss of $350,000. So the modest expected gross gain doesn't justify the expense.

For the mechanics: Option A reverses and restores the claim with no liability established, while Option B reverses with the expert admitted and damages going to retrial. The budget cap is exactly $150,000 for both A and B combined with no slack, and while B edges out A by only $12,500 (