Judge allows BigLaw partner's suit alleging lawyer filed 'highly inflammatory' affidavit for use in negative news article
A federal judge in Connecticut has refused to toss a lawsuit filed by a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and his wife alleging that the opposing counsel in a lease dispute filed a court affidavit for an improper purpose. (Image from Shutterstock)
A federal judge in Connecticut has refused to toss a lawsuit filed by a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and his wife alleging that the opposing counsel in a lease dispute filed a court affidavit for an improper purpose—so it could be used in a negative article about the couple in the New York Post.
U.S. District Judge Janet C. Hall of the District of Connecticut ruled April 5 that partner A. Mark Getachew’s and his wife’s October 2023 abuse-of-process suit against their former landlords and their attorney could proceed, Law360 reports.
The New York Post story, published in October 2020, had alleged that Getachew failed to pay rent of $11,000 per month for a Connecticut mansion. The story relied on an affidavit filed by former Disney chief financial officer Lawrence Rutkowski, who was a member of L&S Investments, the company identified as the landlord for the home.
The affidavit was filed in a prior suit filed by the Getachews in state court seeking reimbursement for the $45,000 that they said they spent to fix the home’s pool, hot tub, waterfall and propane heating system.
The affidavit was filed after the Getachews sought to bar lawyer Eric D. Grayson from representing L&S Investments and Rutkowski in the state court case because he had helped negotiate the lease, making him a fact witness in the dispute.
Rutkowski’s affidavit contained “highly inflammatory material,” Getachew and his wife, DeNora M. Getachew, alleged in their October 2023 abuse-of-process suit against Grayson, L&S Investments and Rutkowski.
The affidavit had described the Getachews as “rich entitled people,” had equated them to “squatters,” and had said the couple were the “least moral people” Rutkowski had ever dealt with in his professional life.
Hall had rejected two claims by the defendants in their dismissal bid. The first was that the suit was a thinly veiled defamation action that is barred by the litigation privilege, which protects litigants from liability for pertinent communications in court proceedings. There is no such privilege for abuse-of-process claims, Hall said.
The second defense claim was that the Getachews had failed to state a proper abuse-of-process case. Hall said the plaintiffs’ allegations were sufficient to allow the case to proceed.
“These factual allegations, accepted as true, suggest that the affidavit was filed by defendants for the primary purpose of making good on their threats to facilitate publication of a New York Post article to publicly embarrass the Getachews and intimidate them into dropping their claims,” Hall wrote.
Law360 noted that Grayson has filed an abuse-of-process suit against the Getachews alleging that their abuse-of-process suit is an attempt to retaliate against him for exercising his First Amendment right to speak about matters of public record.
A lawyer for Getachew, Joseph W. Martini, declined to comment to the ABA Journal. Grayson asked the Journal to contact his lawyer in the matter, Jody Nicholas Cappello, who did not immediately respond to the Journal’s voicemail and email.
