Single Jeopardy by Gene Grossman Read Free Book Online

most of my clients are now serving time, the only client that the State’s computer came up with was Stuart. My name appears as Attorney of Record on that asbestos lawsuit I filed for him. He was notified and given my new phone number so that he could have another attorney call for his file... but Stuart is a loyal friend, so instead of using the Bar’s Referral Program, he’d rather have me find another attorney for him. He calls to let me know that he’s pleased to hear that Melvin has associated in on the case, and that I’d be doing the trial work after my suspension is over. And while he has me on the phone, he tries to lure me into a new business, which he insists on explaining to me: you can use a 1991 federal law that clamps down on people who send out unsolicited faxes to people. The law gives each fax recipient the right to sue for five hundred dollars, and for triple that amount if the fax sender had previously been notified not to send again to that specific number.
    Being at least as clever as Stuart, the Santa Monica-based Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights filed lawsuits in the Superior Court against two California-based mass fax broadcasting companies, alleging that their transmissions of unsolicited faxes violated that federal law Stuart is so fond of – the powerful Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
    One of the Foundation’s defendants was a firm sending out thousands of unsolicited faxes to the Santa Monica area on behalf of the new owner of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s restaurant, ‘Shatzi’ on Main Street, notifying everyone of the management change. The Foundation won a class action judgment against the new restaurant owner and its fax broadcaster, thereby setting a new precedent in the Superior Court, and more specifically in Santa Monica.
    Stuart heard about that case result and saw an open opportunity. He established a business address in one of those private mailbox stores in Santa Monica, placing him inside that judicial district. He then started soliciting people who were receiving unsolicited faxes from Southern California marketers and had the recipients assign the matters to him for collection. He filed Santa Monica Small Claims Court actions on their behalf against the senders. If you’ve been assigned a matter for collection, the Federal law says you can take it to Small Claims Court without being an attorney. Stuart advanced all of the filing fees and costs to have the Marshall’s office serve the papers. If he goes to Court and wins, Stuart gets his costs back and then splits whatever damages the Court awards with the ‘client.’
    From what he says, it sounds like business is booming. After talking to a few friends of mine, I learn that everyone is getting those pesky unsolicited faxes, and it’s a real pain... it uses up fax paper, depletes ink supply and most annoying, keeps the fax line busy so that customers can’t get through. Stuart claims that business is so good he’s thinking of expanding. He wants me to join in with him to make the appearances. Reading between the lines, what he’s really looking for is someone to also advance money for the filing fees and service costs. Not being in a ‘partnering’ mood at the time, I politely beg off… and also turn down another invitation to get together with him and his boat-owning uncle Label.
    I think my present position occupies a place about as low on the legal food chain that I’d like to be at, and Small Claims Court would be a step down from there. As politely as possible, I tell him my social and business calendars are both on hold for the next couple of weeks so that I can tend to an urgent wiring problem on my boat – which really isn’t too far from the truth, but far enough away to keep me from actually tending to it.
    A day or so later the attorney service e-mails us that our Robert Palmer is involved with a whole bunch of things, but to really get to the bottom of it requires a trip to the