Litigation
Jun. 19, 2002
Bathroom Brawl
SAN FRANCISCO - Oakland attorney Paul Rein should be forgiven for feeling like someone's out to get him. Someone is. That someone is George Louie, executive director of an organization called The Americans With Disabilities Advocates and a former client of Rein's.
That someone is George Louie, executive director of an organization called The Americans With Disabilities Advocates and a former client of Rein's.
"I'm going to bring him down," Louie said in an interview. "Paul started messing with me, and now I'm fighting back."
Louie filed a complaint May 24 with the State Bar alleging that Rein, who has handled access and discrimination cases on behalf of disabled people since 1976, improperly recruits plaintiffs to file damages claims against cash-rich businesses.
In April, Louie, who is not a lawyer, filed an in pro per federal discrimination suit on behalf of his organization against Rein for having an inaccessible bathroom in his office. Two days before that, Louie complained to the State Bar that Rein was withholding his old case files.
In his more recent bar complaint, Louie calls Rein "a 'set-up' specialist who on four occasions asked me to visit four businesses in my wheelchair to provide a pretext for suing them."
Louie sent a copy of the complaint to every judge in the Northern District and included a copy of a weekly newspaper's recent article severely critical of Rein. The story, in The Carmel Pine Cone, refers to Louie's lawsuit as "ironic - some would say richly deserved."
Rein passionately disagrees. He says Louie's suit against him is just the latest act by a man who trades in the ruin of others.
"[Louie is] attacking me because I helped other people stand up to him, and I'm leading efforts to expose him as a con man and a lifetime criminal," Rein said.
What had been a successful litigation partnership between Louie and Rein turned confrontational in March, when the lawyer got involved in a billing dispute between Louie and a trial consultant.
Unhappy that Rein indicated he would act as the consultant's counsel, Louie fired off a letter criticizing him to the Northern District judge who was presiding over the dispute.
That was just the beginning.
Louie said he tried for a month to find an attorney who would take the case. None would.
"A lot of people told me not to sue Paul because he's a guru" to the disability rights movement, Louie said.
Those people included Charla Duke, an Oakland lawyer who continues to represent Louie in disability cases even though 10 years ago he accused her of tax fraud. That matter resulted in a criminal investigation. Duke's office was searched by investigators from the Alameda County district attorney's office.
Duke was exonerated. She said she continues to represent Louie because he brings her "good cases," but she counseled him against attacking Rein.
"I told him whatever differences they had were best solved in private," she said.
A longtime Bay Area disability rights attorney who asked to remain anonymous called the suit "shameful."
"Mr. Louie is out of control and does not represent the disability community," the attorney said. "The general consensus is that he does a disservice to the disability community."
Rein says he represented Louie in five matters between 1998 and 2001.
On April 24, 2001, Louie dropped by Rein's office to pick up a $15,000 settlement check in a case filed against Bay Meadows Racecourse in San Mateo. While there, he attempted to use the office bathroom, he said.
In his motion to dismiss Louie's suit against him, Rein claims he had by that time decided to end the relationship because Louie "was filing numerous actions with multiple attorneys, and other matters came to my attention causing me to doubt Mr. Louie's ethics."
Those other matters included the more than 400 discrimination and access lawsuits filed by Louie's organization since its founding in 1999, Rein said.
Rein declined to elaborate on his decision to stop representing Louie, but an ethics expert said it was probably a wise choice given California's frivolous lawsuit statutes.
"That number of cases is a huge red flag that you have a vexatious litigant, and you're sure to start worrying that representing the guy will lead you into violations of your ethical duty," said Pamela Phillips, a partner at Rogers Joseph O'Donnell & Phillips in San Francisco. "I would run the other way."
Phillips said that even if Louie's allegations concerning Rein's recruitment practices are true, Rein hasn't necessarily acted unethically.
"Lawyers do have First Amendment rights to solicit clients," she said, "at least under certain circumstances."
Filing lawsuits is the business of Americans With Disabilities Advocates. According to tax records, legal fees accounted for more than half the organization's $183,000 in expenses in 2000.
"All the money we get from donations and lawsuits is poured into more lawsuits," Louie said. "We've filed more than 100 this year."
A 55-year-old-diabetic, Louie said he was inspired to start the organization when he lost his right leg below the knee to gangrene in 1996.
His Web site says the organization maintains offices in Las Vegas and Seattle. The phone number listed for Las Vegas does not work, and that listed for Seattle connects to Louie's voice mail.
Louie's complaint alleges that the restroom doorway in Rein's office is too narrow for wheelchairs, that the sink cannot be used by people in wheelchairs and that the toilet lacks the necessary grab bars.
Rein insists those assertions are "without factual support." He also says the suit is null and void because Northern District rules preclude nonlawyers from suing on behalf of corporations.
Furthermore, Rein argues, the suit is based entirely on allegations made by Louie, who is "a professional criminal and perjurer. His felony convictions for robbery, grand theft, attempted grand theft, forgery of securities and intimidation of witnesses destroy any credibility he might otherwise have."
According to documents attached to Rein's dismissal motion Louie spent 14 years between 1968 and 1990 in state or federal prison for a variety of offenses. His most recent conviction was in 1986 for assault and false imprisonment involving a 1983 incident in which he and an associate attempted to steal a drug dealer's stash and profits.
According to Rein, state and federal law allows those convicted of crimes of dishonesty to be impeached with those convictions. He said he had no knowledge of Louie's criminal past until he hired a private investigator to help fight Louie's suit.
"He signed the complaint under penalty of perjury - and it's all perjury," Rein said.
Attached to Rein's motion are several witness declarations that Louie has never used the restroom in Rein's office and that, in any event, the restroom was wholly up to code.
One of the declarations is signed by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Gail Bereola, a wheelchair user who is also Rein's client.
The judge's declaration says she used the same restroom in January 2001. She "had no difficulty entering the restroom," it says, and grab bars "were properly mounted at the rear and side of the toilet."
Another of the declarants is Kim Blackseth, an access consultant who has never worked for Rein. Indeed, she has opposed him in court at least 25 times, including in the suit against actor-director Clint Eastwood that made Rein unwelcome in Carmel. In September 2000, a jury found that Eastwood's popular Mission Ranch resort in Carmel was in violation of three access elements of the Americans With Disabilities Act but refused to award damages.
Blackseth has used Rein's bathroom several times in recent years and says that "at no time did I have any trouble entering the restroom in my motorized wheelchair or otherwise have any problems in using the restroom facilities, including use of the toilet, sink and turnaround space."
Louie is unapologetic about a past he says is not pertinent to his lawsuit because his convictions are all more than 10 years old.
"I have no remorse or shame about anything I've done," he said. "I'm not sorry. I couldn't care less. I did it for survival. But I've been clean since 1989, and Rein isn't going to get rid of me with my criminal past."
Nevertheless, Rein remains hopeful that his legal arguments will accomplish just that in a dismissal hearing set for Friday.
"For 33 years I've had an impeccable reputation for integrity," Rein said. "Some people may like me, and others may not, but no one has ever called me a liar."
Rein added that this might not be the last time he and Louie meet in court.
"I'm consulting with attorneys on pursuing civil actions," he said. "I'm considering my legal rights."
Matthew King
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