Back Off Metadata Ethics Complaint, Judge Tells Lawyer Suing Sexploits Blogger
A lawyer who claims he was the paramour identified as “RS” on a blog of sexual exploits has been warned by a judge to back off on an ethics allegation against the blogger’s bankruptcy counsel.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Margaret Cangilos-Ruiz of the Northern District of New York said lawyer Robert Steinbuch claimed the bankruptcy counsel was improperly accessing metadata, but in reality the supposed hidden data was a document name visible to anyone when the court generated a notice of electronic filing, the New York Law Journal reports.
The judge also labeled Steinbuch’s suggestion that a notice of deposition had interfered with a religious holiday as “blatantly misleading and baseless,” since the notice was received before the holiday began, and the deposition was scheduled to take place after the holiday had ended, according to her June 5 opinion (PDF posted by the New York Law Journal) in the case.
Steinbuch is asking Cangilos-Ruiz to hold that his claims against blogger Jessica Cutler can’t be discharged in bankruptcy because she caused him “willful and malicious injury,” according to the New York Law Journal story.
Steinbuch claims in torts suits against Cutler, a former Senate aide, that her posts about her sexual exploits under the name “Washingtonienne” invaded his privacy, the New York Law Journal story says. Steinbuch was a counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee between 2002 and 2004, and he taught at the University of Geogia Law School in the academic year that ended this spring.
In the bankruptcy litigation, Steinbuch sent a letter to the chief judge of the Northern District of New York in March complaining that Cutler’s lawyer, Matthew Billips, had accessed secret metadata on a document he filed, making it possible for the opposing lawyer to determine that Steinbuch had authored a court document, rather than his then-lawyer of record, according to the opinion.
Cangilos-Ruiz derided as “disingenuous” Steinbuch’s suggestion that Billings had invaded the attorney-client relationship and exposed hidden metadata by reading the electronic filing notice.
“The court forewarns plaintiff that if there is any further attempted exploitation by plaintiff to misuse this proceeding and this court to inappropriately attempt to extract some advantage in other litigation or otherwise bog down this litigation, this court will appropriately deal with such behavior, including considering the imposition of sanctions and the reporting of such conduct,” Cangilos-Ruiz wrote.
