Nathan Deal Judicial Center
ATLANTA - An appeals court threw out the lawsuit by a Georgia personal injury lawyer who accused a competitor of stealing fees from him by getting to car-crash victims first.
R. Shane Lazenby hoped to put together a class action on behalf of fellow plaintiff lawyers against Glenn Cambre of Cambre & Associates, managing partner Hannah Moore and a paralegal he said served as a “runner” recruiting clients for the firm. Lazenby accused Cambre of “literally ambulance chasing” to acquire an unfair advantage over “honest” personal injury lawyers.
The complaint accused Cambre & Associates of discovering the identity of accident victims before the information was public and calling them with a high-pressure pitch to hire the firm. In one case, Lazenby said, Cambre made an unsolicited call to a victim and when they hesitated, sent the runner to the victim’s house “with a fee contract in hand.”
The lawsuit accused Cambre of violating Georgia’s anti-solicitation law as well as infringing Lazenby’s “right to do business and compete honestly.” Cambre moved to dismiss, arguing Georgia doesn’t recognize a claim based on the violation of a “right to do business.”
A Gwinnett County judge denied the motion but certified the question for immediate review by the Court of Appeals.
In a Nov. 3 decision, that court dismissed Lazenby’s case. The plaintiff argued Cambre was infringing his right to do “honest business,” the court said, but the claim was better understood to mean Cambre was infringing his property right to practice law.
The court agreed Georgia precedent established a property right in the business a lawyer has created, including contracts with clients. But Lazenby didn’t claim Cambre was interfering with his contracts, nor with his license to practice law, the appeals court said.
Lazenby also argued he and his fellow lawyers were “indisputably the most direct victims” of Cambre’s alleged skullduggery, but the appeals court disagreed.
“The people directly harmed by these alleged violations via repeated access of personal data were the car accident victims whose information was illegally obtained,” wrote Judge Elizabeth Gobeil. The court also dismissed Lazenby’s racketeering claims.
Lazenby’s website still has a page dedicated to the case, “Fighting for Integrity.” Neither his website nor the appeals court decision detail exactly how Cambre is alleged to have obtained advance notice of the names of accident victims, other than “misusing computer systems to obtain personal data.”
The defendants “argue that no one -- not even another attorney harmed by this conduct -- has a right to stop it,” Lazenby states on the website. “They suggest that unless you can prove a stolen client hired them, you can’t seek justice. We strongly disagree.”
Legal Newsline recently detailed a similar “runner” scheme in New York in which law firms recruit poor workers, frequently illegal immigrants, to allegedly stage workplace injuries and car accidents to obtain large settlements. In those cases, insurance companies are filing lawsuits against law firms they claim are engaging in a racketeering enterprise.
