Law firm is dropped from app's antitrust suit; Florida Bar fights request for hotline records

Law firm is dropped from app's antitrust suit; Florida Bar fights request for hotline records

ABA Journal Online
By Debra Cassens Weiss 
October 1, 2018

A ticket-fighting company that matches drivers with lawyers has dropped a law firm known as the Ticket Clinic from its antitrust lawsuit.

The plaintiff, TIKD, had targeted the Ticket Clinic for allegedly filing ethics complaints against lawyers who worked with TIKD. The Ticket Clinic defendants and TIKD sought dismissal in a joint stipulation filed last Thursday, and U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke of Miami ordered dismissal the next day.

Lawyers for TIKD and the Ticket Clinic did not immediately reply to the ABA Journal’s questions about whether the suit has been settled, and whether the terms could be revealed.

TIKD has an app in which drivers who receive tickets upload them, pay TIKD a fixed price, receive information through the app about a lawyer to defend the tickets, and get a guarantee from TIKD that the tickets will cost no more money.

Another defendant, the Florida Bar, is accused in the suit of violating antitrust laws by investigating TIKD for the unlicensed practice of law. The suit also claimed the bar had given the false impression that working with TIKD would violate ethics rules.

The bar filed a Sept. 10 memorandum of law fighting a request to produce internal records regarding calls to its ethics hotline by Florida lawyers seeking guidance about working with TIKD. TIKD responded on Sept. 18 that the bar is equating its own confidentiality rules with an evidentiary privilege.

The bar had argued in a December motion to dismiss that it is immune from the antitrust complaint under the state action doctrine because it is an arm of the Florida Supreme Court and an agency of the state, Reuters previously reported. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in the case in March that said the bar does not have absolute immunity because of the Supreme Court’s decision in North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners v. Federal Trade Commission. (Wikipedia)

The high court decision in the case held that a dental board made up primarily of practicing dentists lacked immunity when it sent cease-and-desist letters to nondentists who performed teeth-whitening services.

The Justice Department’s statement of interest said the Florida Bar can’t claim immunity unless it shows its conduct was in accord with "clearly articulated" state policy and the bar is "actively supervised" by the state, Bloomberg BNA reported in March. Read more

Judicial immunity protects judge who was recorded disparaging lawyers, 6th Circuit says

Judicial immunity protects judge who was recorded disparaging lawyers, 6th Circuit says

ABA Journal Online 
By Debra Cassens Weiss 
May 30, 2019

A Michigan state judge caught on a recording disparaging two lawyers has immunity in their suit alleging a conspiracy with opposing counsel, a federal appeals court has ruled.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Cincinnati ruled Tuesday that the actions of Judge Paul Hamre did not fit within either of two exceptions to judicial immunity. Hamre, who’s a judge in Van Buren County, announced his retirement from the bench a month after the May 2013 incident.

Hamre made the remarks at the end of a telephone status conference, according to the 6th Circuit opinion. The lawyers for the plaintiffs in a collection action, Donovan and Donald Visser, participated by phone, while the defense lawyers were in chambers with Hamre.

Donovan Visser is Donald Visser’s son, according to an August 2013 story by MLive.com. They represented a company called HLV that was seeking to collect a $600,000 debt from a storage trailer company.

At the end of the conference, one of the lawyers on the phone hung up, making a clicking noise. Hamre and the two defense lawyers in his chambers—Gary Stewart and Kelly Page—apparently thought all the other callers were off the line, Judge John Nalbandian wrote in his opinion for the 6th Circuit.

Two unidentified speakers in chambers used obscenities to describe Donovan and Donald Visser, and Hamre expressed agreement, according to the opinion. According to a later lawsuit filed by HLV, one speaker "called Donald Visser a f- - -ing d- -khead," and a speaker "called Donovan Visser a f- - -ing d- - -." Hamre agreed that "his son is even worse," the suit says.

Hamre also discussed the collection case, telling the defense attorneys that their client did not have to transfer all 600 trailers to the Vissers’ client as called for in an initial settlement agreement that was later amended.

At one point, Hamre’s assistant told the judge that she received a report from HLV detailing the status of the trailers, but Hamre told her to "throw it in the garbage." Hamre said he intended to tell HLV at an upcoming hearing that he was extending an injunction that favored the defense.

The 6th Circuit decision upholds Hamre’s dismissal from an HLV suit claiming a RICO conspiracy. HLV’s amended suit claimed that Page, Stewart and their law firm conspired with Hamre to violate HLV’s constitutional rights. The suit alleged that the defense lawyers and their firm gave Hamre office space and Florida vacations to influence his decisions, according to the 6th Circuit opinion.

Defendants named in the initial suit had called it "a study in defamation" that "reads less like a pleading filed in federal court than it does poorly written fiction," according to prior news coverage by MLive.com.

The only defendant who wasn’t dismissed from HLV’s suit was Stewart. Jurors found a conspiracy but awarded only $1 in nominal damages. Jurors did not award punitive damages because they found that Stewart’s conduct was not motivated by evil motive and did not reflect indifference to the plaintiffs’ due process rights.

The 6th Circuit decision affirming Hamre’s dismissal from the case also upheld rulings by the trial judge challenged by HLV.

The Michigan Attorney Discipline Board affirmed reprimands for Stewart, Page and Hamre in July 2017. Read more

Hat tip to Law360.

SCOTUS denies cert in case on pro se treatment filed by David Boies and Richard Posner

SCOTUS denies cert in case on pro se treatment filed by David Boies and Richard Posner

American Bar Association
By Debra Cassens Weiss
April 30, 2019

A former pro se litigant had some high-powered help when he asked the U.S. Supreme Court to consider what kind of explanation courts must provide to unrepresented people.

Among those representing litigant William Bond were former Circuit Judge Richard Posner and Boies Schiller Flexner chair David Boies. The U.S. Supreme Court nonetheless denied cert Monday.

Bond had accused three federal judges of conspiring to throw a case. A federal judge had tossed Bond’s lawsuit and denied two motions seeking to amend it. After Posner took up the case, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at in Richmond, Virginia, ruled that the federal court did not abuse its discretion by denying the second motion.

The cert petition identifies the issue as whether a district court must provide a reason when denying a pro se litigant leave to amend a complaint when the reason can be gleaned from the litigation record. The district court order denying Bond’s second motion to amend had said it was based on reasons stated in an initial dismissal of the suit.

The cert petition had argued that the order didn’t provide an adequate explanation. "Absent notice of their pleading deficiencies," the cert petition said, "very few pro se litigants can parse the record and identify how to successfully amend their complaints."

Posner had abruptly retired from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Chicago in 2017, citing boredom with judging and rebuffed efforts to aid pro se litigants. He went on to form a nationwide pro bono group to help pro se litigants. Read more