Judge fines DLA Piper partner $10K after concluding he violated her order and lied about it
A federal judge in Manhattan has fined a DLA Piper partner and a former lawyer with the firm after concluding they apparently lied about violation of her court order.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Forrest imposed a fine of $10,000 on DLA Piper partner Brian John Pendleton Jr. and a fine of $1,500 on former DLA Piper lawyer Gina Trimarco, report Law360 (sub. req.) and the New York Law Journal (sub. req.). She also said DLA Piper will have to pay attorney fees and costs incurred by its litigation opponent, Smart Insurance, in connection with the lawyers’ wrongdoing.
Forrest imposed the sanctions in a June 29 opinion (sub. req.) that weighed competing versions of what transpired during a January 2016 phone call. According to a former employee for DLA client Benecard Services, Jeffrey Reed, he was speaking with DLA Piper lawyers and a male voice advised him not to speak to opposing counsel.
Pendleton and Trimarco testified in a May 5 hearing that they were speaking with Reed during the call, but they never advised him not to speak with opposing counsel. Forrest had issued a previous order stating that the lawyers should not interfere with opposing counsel interviewing witnesses.
Pendleton said he would have never have told Reed not to speak with lawyers for Smart Insurance, and his email to Reed afterward summarized the conversation and did not include such an instruction.
Forrest credited Reed’s testimony about the conversation over that of Pendleton and Trimarco.
Forrest said Pendleton and Trimarco had conferred about their recollections of the call before the May hearing, which could undermine her ability to test their independent recollections. “The fact that they did so—and the unusually high degree of similarity between their testimonies—further undermines their credibility,” she said.
“In light of the court’s conclusion that Mr. Reed testified truthfully and accurately about the contents of the January 28 call,” Forrest wrote, “it logically follows that Mr. Pendleton not only knowingly and intentionally violated the December 8 Order (and that Ms. Trimarco was complicit in that violation), but also that Mr. Pendleton and Ms. Trimarco intentionally misled the court by providing false testimony at the May 5 hearing.
“Neither Mr. Pendleton nor Ms. Trimarco offered any middle ground; each asserted that his or her recollection was strong and each categorically denied saying anything that could be remotely confused with what Mr. Reed claimed was said on the January 28 call.”
Forrest added that Pendleton “has otherwise conducted himself in a professional manner” during the litigation, and his misconduct “is, quite frankly, hard to reconcile with the remainder of his representation in this action. Nonetheless, the court is convinced that this misconduct occurred, even if it was only a one-time mistake.”
Pendleton referred an email seeking comment to DLA Piper spokesman Josh Epstein, who forwarded a statement to the ABA Journal. “We have great respect for Judge Forrest, however, we respectfully disagree with the findings in this order,” the statement said. “We have full confidence in the integrity and truthfulness of our lawyers and will continue to pursue appropriate next steps in this matter.”
New Jersey courts list a phone number for Trimarco at DLA Piper, which told the ABA Journal it did not have contact information for its former lawyer.
