Legal News

Cursing Client?s Lawyer Unable to Get Sanctions Lifted

By Dan Slater

Remember Joseph Ziccardi and his foul-mouthed client? In February, the lawyer-client combo was fined more than $29,000 because the client used the f-word, or variations thereof, 73 times during a deposition. (That’s about $367 per expletive.)

Ziccardi tried to get himself off the hook by arguing, first, that he was not the lawyer who “snickered” while his client was swearing his way through the deposition, and, second, that he was never given proper notice that he faced sanctions under FRCP 30 and 37.

But Eduardo Robreno, the federal judge in Philadelphia who sanctioned Ziccardi, rejected all of those arguments, reports the Legal Intelligencer, finding that the technical flaw identified by Ziccardi did not amount to a violation of the lawyer’s due process rights and that none of the factual issues would change the judge’s mind. Robreno ruled that although Ziccardi wasn’t informed of the precise rule he would be sanctioned under, he was nonetheless able to, and did, mount a “meaningful defense.”

Here’s Judge Robreno’s opinion.

Judge Robreno said he sanctioned Ziccardi for his “persistent inaction in the face of [the client’s] gross misconduct.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 18, 2008 (boomark / email).