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Its not like the general public needs any more reason to dislike attorneys, right? Well, unfortunately, there will always be more fuel for the fire.
If you’ve ever watched the news, I’m sure you could call attorneys boozers, they are extremely arrogant, and they are big tools. Now, the cynics get to add ”cherry-pickers” to their list of reason to not like attorneys.
The attorney in the following case acted like a total nut, like the idiots in Call of Duty who just hide in the bushes the entire game, waiting for people to turn the corner straight into a face full of fire.
But, luckily, an Ohio appeals court called shenanigans…
Christopher T. Cicero, who is an Ohio attorney, collected 85 emails from a marketing company call American Satellite, which was advertising DISH Network and DirectTV television. He had apparently thought that the emails were misleading for not fully explaining the terms and conditions of the ”free” services that were being offered to him.
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To be very clear, Cicero himself was not misled, but he had thought the omission of applicable terms and services violated the Ohio Consumer Sales Protection Act. He waited a few months, building up his collection of emails, until he finally decided that there was enough for a lawsuit.
Of course, Cicero v. American Satellite didn’t get very far in court. The defense actually used Cicero’s own deposition against him. And according to the court, he testified that ”at the time, he received the emails that are the subject of this litigation, not only was he not deceived by them, but because he believed they violated the OCSPA, he began saving the emails specifically for litigation purposes.” The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the American Satellite.
Yet, on September 27, the Ohio Court of Appeals denied Cicero’s appeal, and the whole court wrote that the key issue was whether Cicero could recover damages, even though he was not all misled.
Last week, Venkat Balasubramani at the Technology and Marketing Blog had a really good analysis on the case:
”Another court that’s less than sympathetic towards a lawyer-plaintiff. Quel dommange. (Woods v. Google was the most recent example of this, but there are many others.) Courts are also not sympathetic to claims which they perceive as manufactured. This lawsuit combined both of these elements — a lawyer-plaintiff, who saved up allegedly misleading emails so he could file suit — so its hardly surprising that the court gives him the boot.”
So, there’s really no need to put Cicero down anymore than he is. He has obviously been through enough, and this just isn’t his week. He thought that he could win the suit he filed on American Satellite because they misled him, or because they didn’t follow the right laws, or whatever it was that Cicero was actually filing against, but he got denied by the court. Maybe if he could just get his story straight on what it is that he’s actually filing a law suit about, then the court would take him seriously.
