Around The Firm

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August G. Cifelli and William R. Kiendl obtained dismissal of plaintiff’s claims against their client in Sipin v. King County, et al. Gus and Bill’s client, an accident reconstructionist, provided testimony for a prosecutor, resulting in the criminal defendant’s vehicular-homicide conviction. The criminal defendant later won reversal of his conviction and filed a civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 against several parties. Gus and Bill, working with other counsel, first successfully moved for summary judgment of dismissal of the civil-rights plaintiff’s state-law claims. Gus and Bill then filed a summary judgment motion on the plaintiff’s remaining federal-law claims. Rather than oppose the federal motion, the civil rights plaintiff agreed to dismiss his claims against motion, the civil-rights plaintiff agreed to dismiss his claims against the accident reconstructionist. Gus and Bill are pursuing attorney fees and litigation costs on behalf of their client.

Gregory P. Turner and Shaunna H. Gutina won summary judgment in Van Hoven v. Pre-Employee.com. Plaintiff was hired by a hospital, contingent on passing a background check. Plaintiff failed to disclose his criminal background. An adverse report came back from the defendant. Plaintiff was called in to the hospital’s human resources department and asked to explain why a report showed that he had been found guilty of two drug convictions and his application signed under penalty of perjury did not. Plaintiff admitted that he knew about the drug conviction and had no explanation for failing to disclose it. Had plaintiff disclosed the drug conviction when he applied for the job, the hospital would not have even interviewed him much less hired him. The hospital then terminated plaintiff. Plaintiff sued the background-check company, alleging that its report overstated the scope of the drug conviction. The background check suggested that plaintiff had been found guilty of possession of both marijuana and drug paraphernalia, when in fact he had pleaded guilty only to teh latter charge. Greg and Shaunna moved for summary judgment, pointing out that their client's procedures were governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act and had fully complied with FRCA’s requirements. The court agreed that there was no evidence of violation of FRCA and that there was no proximate cause because plaintiff admittedly lied on his job application and dismissed the action.