Appeals court tosses suit against law firms that represented Ceglia in Facebook ownership claim
A New York appeals court has tossed a lawsuit that accused DLA Piper and two other law firms of malicious prosecution for representing a man who claimed a 2003 contract gave him a controlling interest in Facebook.
The court ruled on behalf of the law firms DLA Piper, Milberg and Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman in a Dec. 29 opinion, report the Am Law Daily, Buffalo Business First, Reuters, the New York Daily News and Bloomberg News. The court also dismissed claims against eight individual lawyers.
The law firms had represented Paul Ceglia, who claimed he hired Mark Zuckerberg to do design work a Ceglia website tentatively called “The Face Book.” Ceglia’s documents were “obviously forged,” Facebook’s suit against the law firms had alleged.
Ceglia was charged with mail and wire fraud in October 2012 for allegedly falsifying the contract and fabricating emails to support his Facebook ownership claim. He remains on the lam.
Kasowitz, Benson, Torres and Friedman had withdrawn from representing Ceglia after its expert concluded that the 2003 contract had been altered to include the Facebook references. Kasowitz Benson informed DLA Piper and Lippes Mathias of its findings in a letter.
Both law firms conducted a thorough probe after receiving the letter, even subjecting Ceglia to a polygraph test, the appeals court said. Ceglia passed the test.
The appeals court also noted that a court that originally reviewed the contract had granted Ceglia a temporary restraining order. The contract’s authenticity was vigorously contested throughout Ceglia’s civil litigation, with experts offering differing views, the appeals court said.
