I love TCPAWorld.

I know I have said it before, but seriously stuff happens here that simply does not happen anywhere else in the legal world.

For instance, Diana Mey just obtained an order from the federal district court in West Virginia directing a party suing her for extortion in Puerto Rico to stand down.

Its crazy. The Courts have almost no authority to order other courts to cease their proceedings and are generally loathe to do so. But the West Virginia district court just took a case away from Puerto Rico–treating it like a “non-state” little brother.

Now there are a few pieces here and it is all worth a frank discussion and I am going to name names a bit because of the oddness of the scenario.

So Mey claims she received unwanted telemarketing calls from some law firm: Cohen & Malad, LLP, Pintas & Mullins Injury Lawyers, and Nash & Franciskato Law Firm. She decided to sue under the TCPA.

These facts further two well-tread narratives– one, that Mey is a badass non-stop TCPA serial filer. and two that Plaintiff’s law firms (particularly mass tort firms) are subject to suit for the aggressive practices of the lead generators they buy from. (Mass torts made perfect is actually a perfect storm for TCPA lawsuits.)

So Mey sends a demand letter to these three law firms and the next day, “Mey was contacted by Robby Birnbaum and Chris Meier, Florida attorneys associated with the law firm Greenspoon Marder.”

Per the Court, “between March 16 and April 7, 2023, Mey exchanged numerous emails with Birnbaum and Meier, who offered assurances to Mey that Pintas wanted to settle her claims. It appears in retrospect that Pintas had no intention of settling the claims, but was simultaneously scheming to file a meritless action in Puerto Rico for the sole purpose of intimidating and coercing Mey into abandoning her claims.”

“On April 4, 2023—the same day that Birnbaum emailed Mey about setting up a zoom meeting for April 7 “on getting the claim resolved”—Pintas directed the filing of a lawsuit in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico’s Court of First Instance. In that lawsuit, Pintas makes a claim for fraud, asserting that Mey somehow entrapped the firm into violating state and federal telemarketing laws. Among other attacks, Pintas accuses Mey of “extortion” and commiting fraud against the United States government.”

So the Court says Greenspoon lawyers basically strung Mey along and prevented her from filing suit long enough to allow this Pintas character to file his own suit in Puerto Rico. This is important because the “first filed” rule usually allows the court where the case is first filed to exercise jurisdiction over a dispute.

But this was only the first of the alleged tricks deployed by Pintas here.

Once the suit was filed it was served via email in an all Spanish email to Mey, which she does not read. Eventually the Plaintiff even tries to have her served via publication notice–in a Spanish language newspaper. In puerto rico.

Now Mey has allegedly never done any business in Puerto Rico and lives in West Virginia. She has no apparent contacts with the territory and does not apparently speak Spanish.

Still she hires an attorney who does some work in the case to try to lift a resulting default against her. And, in the meantime, she asks the West Virginia court for help. She asks the Court to issue an order preventing the Puerto Rico case from proceeding on the grounds the court lacks jurisdiction and the case was essentially a sham to prevent her fro having her day in court.

Now 99.999999999% of the time this sort of motion would be denied. It is for the PR court to determine the case is a sham, not some court in West Virginia. Imagine Trump asking a court in Alabama to stay the criminal suit in New York. Its essentially preposterous.

But there is a narrow doctrine that permits such orders where the original court plainly lacks jurisdiction and the case is essentially a fraud on the entire justice system. And that’s what the Mey court decided:

The Puerto Rico litigation was instituted even though personal jurisdiction was lacking in a jurisdiction far from the situs of the alleged illegal phone calls and texts. Service of process was allegedly obtained through underhanded methods. The suit, inter alia, seeks to have the Puerto Rico court determine the legality of the calls, and involves the TCPA, a subject matter over which the Puerto Rico court has no jurisdiction…. This Court finds that the Puerto Rico action is burdensome, vexatious, and intended to deprive Ms. Mey of her day in court in the proper venue.

I mean… maybe. But still, seeing the WV court smack down the PR proceeding at the behest of Diana Mey feels like the ultimate in home cooking.

And I wonder about the guys at Greenspoon. Did they intentionally delay Mey to allow a sneak attack in Puerto Rico as the Court suggests? Or were they just dutifully trying to get a deal done?

This whole thing is odd and makes me feel a bit uneasy. Regardless, the parties “are ENJOINED and PROHIBITED from proceeding in any way with the underlying lawsuit in the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Court of First Instance.”

You may live the rest of your natural life and never see anything like this again. Very odd.