Vanessa Kachadurian-Judge orders sanctions against activist Lawyer

Photo above of Barry Silver the King of frivilous lawsuits.



Palm Beach County judge sanctions activist lawyer for ignoring court order
By Jane Musgrave Palm Beach Post Staff Writer


Posted: 6:48 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10, 2010


Those who have watched crusading lawyer Barry Silver have often questioned his tactics.

There was the time he filed a lawsuit on behalf of a dog. There was the time he organized a horn-honking parade to interupt a children's deer hunt. There was the time, when defending a hotdog vendor's right to wear a thong, he had a bikini-clad woman deliver a subpoena to now jailed Commissioner Mary McCarty.

This time, however, a Palm Beach County judge says Silver has gone too far. Saying the Boca Raton lawyer acted in bad faith in a defamation suit he filed against Jews for Jesus, Circuit Judge Edward Fine ordered him to pay $52,828 to lawyers who defended the Christian group.

And, perhaps for the first time in his life, the former state lawmaker doesn't have a pithy quote to sum up his predicament.

In a plea to Fine this week Silver said the ruling "will devastate me, my family and my career as an attorney and as a rabbi."

On Friday, he said simply: "I don't have $50,000."

Mathew Staver, founder of the nonprofit Liberty Counsel which represents Jews for Jesus, applauded Fine's ruling.

"Barry Silver has tried to frame this lawsuit as a polemic against Christianity in general and Jews for Jesus in particular," he said in a statement. "The court has rightly imposed sanctions against this abuse of process."

The seeds for Fine's action were planted years ago.

In 2005, he ordered Silver to pay Liberty Counsel attorney fees because he had ignored orders to pare down his complaint. Last year, Fine again blasted Silver for not removing "redundant, bellicose and unnecessary" language from the suit.

In his brief, Silver said he misunderstood the court's instructions. "My error was honestly made, and the inclusion of these paragraphs was not done in bad faith," he wrote.

The lawsuit itself has a complex history. Silver filed it on 2003 on behalf of Edith Rapp. The Jewish woman was mortified when her stepson wrote a story for a Jews for Jesus newsletter that said she had accepted Jesus shortly before her husband died.

When the suit was dismissed, Silver appealed. The 4th District Court of Appeal kicked it up to the Florida Supreme Court for advice. It wanted to know whether state law allowed people to recover damages if a publication painted them in a false light. The high court found that false light was too broad. But, it said, people can claim defamation if an article "prejudices" them to a "substantial and respectable minority of the community."

The appeals court told Silver to refile his suit without "excessive editorialization."

Silver said his fight isn't over. He is asking Fine to recuse himself, claiming he is biased. If Fine refuses and doesn't reduce the sanctions, Silver said he will appeal.

He acknowledged it could be risky. If it fails, the amount could increase. He offered to make a $500 or $1,000 contribution to the county law library or to legal aid.

In his order, Fine said he wished he could do more to compensate the Liberty Counsel for the time and money it lost responding to Silver's repetitive claims.

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