Sued wrong party, wrist duly slapped

Brooklyn, N.Y. attorney Regina Felton held a judgment against an outfit named United Equities Corp. which she tried to enforce against an entity named United Equities Inc. Attorneys for the latter informed her repeatedly that despite the coincidence of names the two businesses had no connection to each other. Citing the New York courts’ definition of frivolous conduct, trial judge Arthur M. Schack ruled that Felton’s continued refusal to withdraw the action even after it was “crystal clear” that it was mistaken was “completely without merit in law” and “ignored UEI’s good faith attempts to resolve this matter without resort to lengthy and costly proceeding”. Nonetheless, he granted UEI only about half the $25,000 in attorneys’ fees it sought and “declined to add sanctions, calling the $13,287.50 in costs a ‘sufficient penalty.'” Maybe UEI would have been better off settling her demand for $10,000 at the outset. (Mark Fass, “Lawyer Ordered to Pay Fees After Pursuing ‘Frivolous’ Suit”, New York Law Journal, Jul. 9). Felton, whom New York law blogger Andrew Bluestone describes as “well known” (Sept. 27, 2007; more at Feb. 14, 2007) won notice a couple of years ago when she unsuccessfully argued before the Tax Court that she did not “consider herself” an employee of the law offices of Regina Felton, PC. (RothCPA, Sept. 18, 2006).

July 20 roundup

  • Judge Henry Lackey, who went to feds to report bribe attempt by Dickie Scruggs associate, gets award and standing ovations at Mississippi bar convention, says he was just doing a judge’s job [NMC/Folo]
  • Related: should Ole Miss Chancellor Robert Khayat have used official university stationery for his letter pleading leniency for chum/ benefactor Scruggs? [Daily Mississippian and editorial via YallPolitics, continuing coverage at Folo; earlier]
  • Stephen Dubner: if lawyer/subscriber can sue Raleigh News & Observer over perceived decline in its quality, who’s next? [NYT/Freakonomics blog, earlier]
  • Maneuvering over retrial of Kentucky fen-phen defendants Gallion and Cunningham [Lexington Herald-Leader]
  • A Fieger sideshow: though acquitted in recent campaign laundering prosecution, controversial lawyer fared less well in lawsuit against Michigan AG Michael Cox; Sixth Circuit tossed that suit and upheld order that Fieger fork over attorney fees to Michigan Supreme Court Justice Stephen Markman over subjecting the justice to unfounded vilification [ABA Journal; fixed typo on Circuit]
  • Citing long history of frivolous litigation, federal judge in central Texas fines disbarred lawyer Charles Edward Lincoln and his client and bans Lincoln from bringing any more federal suits [SE Texas Record]
  • Faced with $18 million legal-malpractice jury verdict, Indiana labor law firm stays in business by agreeing to make token payment, then gang up on its liability insurer for the rest [Indianapolis Business Journal, Ketzenberger/Indy Star via ABA Journal]

ADA claim: store wouldn’t let him use inline skates

Peter Jose Smith of Provo, Utah, is suing the Mercado Latino market, saying it violated his accommodation rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act because it wouldn’t let him wear inline skates in the store behind his wheelchair. Store owner Hugo Martinez said Smith, who has sued other local businesses, was asked to comply with the store’s policy against skates after he “was riding quickly in the store and bumped into another customer”. (Ace Stryker, “Disabled Provo man suing Latin market”, Provo Daily Herald, Jul. 18).

Claim: Spitzer’s floozy used my lost ID

New Jersey dental assistant Amber Arpaio found herself an asterisk-to-an-asterisk in the history of political scandals when it was reported that Ashley Dupre used Arpaio’s lost driver’s license to pass for more than 17 when she made a “Girls Gone Wild” video that later became notorious after the exposure of Dupre’s paid liaison with Gov. Eliot Spitzer. So now Arpaio is suing Dupre and Joe Francis, impresario of the “Girls Gone Wild” series. The news coverage of the lawsuit contains no indication that Arpaio suffered any damage to her credit record or other tangible interests from the affair, but she wants upwards of $10 million in cash solace for defamation and invasion of privacy, and, per her attorney, because “when someone searches her name on the Internet, pornographic material comes up.” Much better, when someone searches her name on the Internet, for intimations of litigiousness to come up. (Nancy Dillon, “Duped by Dupre: N.J. woman charges Spitzer call girl with identity theft”, New York Daily News, Jul. 17; AP/Comcast, Jul. 17)(& Prettier Than Napoleon). Plus: complaint at The Smoking Gun (h/t commenter VMS).

More 7/22: Thanks to commenter Eric Turkewitz for pointing out that Dupre had posed as Arpaio in actual news coverage, not just in the signing of film releases and the like, which makes the basis for the suit less unreasonable than I had hastily assumed.

Google AdWords class action

It will come as no surprise to anyone who surfs the Web much that many parked domains and 404 error pages on otherwise active websites carry Google keyword ads. (If you don’t know what a parked domain is, this is one; if you don’t know what a 404 error page is, here’s ours.) It might also seem reasonable that ads in these locations would be glanced at and even clicked on by some non-trivial number of visitors, who will often be looking for information on the relevant topic (that’s the idea behind keywords) and, frustrated in their initial search for content, might be ready to check out an advertiser’s substitute content. However, Boston lawyer Hal K. Levitte professes great dismay and consternation that 15 percent of the $887.67 he spent on his ad campaign went toward placements in such inferior spots, resulting in 693 clickthroughs and no actual conversions to prospect or client status. So he’d like class action status to sue for fraud and unjust enrichment on behalf of all other Google ad customers (Legal Blog Watch, Jul. 16).

P.S. From comments, reader J.B.:

Not sure what’s fraudulent here, when Mr. Levitte set up his ad campaign in Google AdWords he was given the opportunity to specify whether he wanted his ads to appear only on Google search result pages, or also in other places such as these parked domains.

In addition, Google gives you the option to pay less for clicks from these “inferior” spots, because as he found out, they often result in less-desirable visitors.

We in the technology world have a saying for people like Mr. Levitte: “RTFM”

ADA: Sure, call him a “professional plaintiff”

“I have no problem being accused of being a professional whatever,” says Allen Fox, who’s filed 139 disabled-accessibility lawsuits over six years in concert with attorney Samuel Aurelio, as many as eight of the similarly worded complaints in a day. Most of the complaints result in the payment of legal fees and Fox, of West Palm Beach, Fla., pays nothing on the rare occasions he loses.

Aurilio, who has filed 274 ADA cases in Florida, including Fox’s, laments that a few lawyers have given all of those who fight for the disabled a bad name. The poster child is a North Miami lawyer who in 2003 was sanctioned by U.S. District Judge Donald Middlebrooks for filing 13 lawsuits on behalf of a man he claimed was a quadriplegic who later walked in to give his deposition in one of the cases.

Not only was the man not disabled, he “did not know what a quadriplegic was, and when the term was explained to him, he was repulsed by the thought of being so incapacitated,” Middlebrooks wrote in a blistering 18-page order sanctioning lawyer Lawrence Fuller.

Fuller was also admonished by the Florida Bar; by one estimate, he’d taken in $3 million in his ADA practice by that point. (Jane Musgrave, “‘Pro Plaintiff’ Crusades for Disabled Access”, Palm Beach Post/Lakeland Ledger, May 12).

Compelling disclosure of commenters’ identities

A judge in Westchester County, N.Y. (hey, that’s here!) has ruled on the circumstances under which libel complainants can employ compulsory process to unveil the identity of anonymous ill-wishers on blogs and online forums. In this case the plaintiff is Richard Ottinger, a former liberal Congressman who’s now the dean of Pace University Law School (NYLJ via Greenfield).

L.A. Times warning sign contest

Readers turned it into more of a general funny-sign contest, but some of the entries hint at a legally driven tendency to overwarn. Among the most disturbing messages is the one on #53, “Toilets and urinals flushed with reclaimed water. Do not drink.” (Scroll to “As if you would anyway“).

P.S. From comments, Jane T.: “Yesterday I noticed that a commercial for a drug that is prescribed to reduce the size of enlarged prostates issued a warning (in the ad) that women should not take it for various reasons none of which were that women do not have prostates.”

Thomas Geoghegan: “See You in Court”

The Texas Review of Law & Politics has published my review of Thomas Geoghegan’s book. I differ from the favorable reviews of Adam Liptak and others:

Many books and writers have documented the problems caused by the tremendous expansion of liability in the last half century. In response, several writers on the political left have written defenses of unfettered liability or indictments of the tort reform movement, sometimes even rationalizing such infamous outliers as the McDonald’s coffee case as legitimate uses of the tort system.

The latest arrival in this genre comes from much-celebrated labor lawyer and author Thomas Geoghegan: See You in Court: How the Right Made America a Lawsuit Nation. Unlike many on his political side of the aisle, Geoghegan acknowledges that the litigation explosion has harmed America, but blames it on right-wing policies. Deregulation, deunionization, and the right’s putative dismantling of the legal system and Rule of Law, Geoghegan argues, have driven Americans to the courts by cutting off alternative routes to social justice. Geoghegan effectively demonstrates that the left should view skeptically the claims of the litigation lobby, a skepticism sadly disappearing from the political discourse as the Democratic Party more and more reflexively adopts the positions of trial-lawyer benefactors at the expense of its other constituents. But Geoghegan’s attempt to blame conservatives for the increased role of litigation in society suffers from non sequiturs, self-contradictory arguments, and a general failure to engage his opponents’ arguments fairly.

Thanks to those at Overlawyered who commented on an earlier draft and helped make the paper better by reminding me that political contributions were a revealed preference.

McDonald’s drive-through window speakers

When driving through the hamburger chain’s order line, Karen Tumeh, who is hearing-impaired, doesn’t like to use the order box, which she says makes her hearing aid screech. Her lawsuit apparently construes the Americans with Disabilities Act as entitling her instead to place her order upon arriving at the pickup window and wait there until it is ready, even if other customers are lined up behind her. Employees at a Lincoln, Neb. outlet of the hamburger chain allegedly told her that if she couldn’t or wouldn’t use the order box she should come inside and order from the counter rather than hold up other patrons in the car line. (Clarence Mabin, “Hearing-impaired woman sues McDonald’s”, Jul. 15; AP/Omaha World Herald, Jul. 16).