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Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Courts - "Typos and Errors Lead to Slashed Fees for Attorney"
Shannon P. Duffy of The Legal Intelligencer has a lengthy story today headed "Typos and Errors Lead to Slashed Fees for Attorney" -- here are some quotes:
Attorney Brian M. Puricelli seems to have a knack for making judges [sic].After winning a jury verdict of $150,000 in a civil rights suit, Puricelli filed a petition for more than $180,000 in attorney fees for himself and his co-counsel, Theodore M. Kravitz, that was riddled with typographical and other sorts of errors.
The sloppy pleading clearly angered Senior U.S. District Judge J. William Ditter Jr., who spent the first three pages of his opinion in McKenna v. City of Philadelphia just describing the errors, adding "[sic]" after each one, and ultimately slashed the fees to about $26,000.
Among the many misspellings flagged by Ditter were "plaintf," "Philadehia," "attoreys," "reasonbale" and "Ubited States." Puricelli also wrote the phrase "mocong papers" where he clearly intended to write "moving papers."
And in the proposed order attached to the motion, Puricelli had evidently cut and pasted from a document in a different case without changing the defendants' names or the dollar figures, leading Ditter to say, "It is suggested that I sign an order which recites the wrong amount of McKenna's judgment and orders three strangers to this action to pay attorneys' fees and costs."
Ditter also noted that Puricelli had misidentified one of the defendants, Andrew Jericho, as "Richard Jericho," and, in the next paragraph, as "Ritchard Jericho." * * *
For Puricelli, the decision was eerily reminiscent of a February 2004 decision by U.S. Magistrate Judge Jacob P. Hart that slashed Puricelli's fees because of court pleadings that were laden with typos and other errors. "Mr. Puricelli's complete lack of care in his written product shows disrespect for the court," Hart wrote in Devore v. City of Philadelphia. "His errors, not just typographical, caused the court a considerable amount of work. Hence, a substantial reduction is in order."
Hart decided to award Puricelli $300 per hour for his courtroom work, saying he was "smooth" and "artful" in securing a $430,000 verdict in the civil rights suit but said he deserved only $150 per hour for his sloppy written work.
In an interview, Puricelli said, "I have my faults," that he relies too heavily on spell-checking software, and that "sometimes I don't proofread enough."
But Puricelli also explained that his original filing, which he agreed was riddled with typos, was the result of a filing error. Using the court's electronic filing system, he said, he had accidentally filed a "draft" version that had not been proofread.
As a result, Puricelli complained that Ditter's opinion was a "cheap shot" because the judge must have known that the amended version, filed just three days later, was the "finished product."
"There were mistakes, but they were caught," Puricelli said.
Puricelli also said he believes he is "singled out" by his opponents and the judges he appears before as a result of Hart's opinion and the attention it garnered.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on October 8, 2008 11:23 AM
Posted to Courts in general