Lawrie v. Ginn Lawsuit Dismissed Without Prejudice
Plaintiffs may re-file no later than November 5. Judge Corrigan offers suggestions for improvements.
Palm Coast, FL – October 2, 2010 – Judge Timothy Corrigan, U.S. District Court – Middle District of Florida – Jacksonville Division; issued an Order dismissing the Lawrie v. Ginn, et al. first amended complaint (FAC) without prejudice. Without prejudice means a second amended complaint may be filed. The order was filed September 21.
Lawsuit too broad
Lawrie v. Ginn is a broad class action lawsuit the judge described as a "shotgun pleading." In discussing the FAC, Corrigan states, "The sheer length and confusing structure of the FAC makes it difficult to parse. [emphasis added] The FAC is 134 pages and 566 paragraphs long and asserts six counts against eleven defendants." Defendants include several Ginn entities, Lubert-Adler, ESI Living LLC (a sales and marketing company), plus three banks; SunTrust, Fifth Third, and Wachovia.
"The FAC must be repleaded in a more concise, coherent and orderly fashion."
Judge gives Plaintiffs some help
But Corrigan does not stop there. He continues, "However, rather than simply order repleader, the Court takes this opportunity to address certain other concerns it has with the structure and content of the FAC to give Plaintiffs their best opportunity to plead a viable complaint."
After over nine pages of detailed suggenstions the Court concludes, "By this Order, the Court does not mean to imply that Plaintiffs will not be able to plead a viable complaint. Nor is the Court unsympathetic to the Plaintiffs’ position that they should be given some leeway because they cannot learn the complex inner workings of the Ginn entities without discovery. But FAC is deficient and must be repleaded."
A second amended complaint must be filed no later than November 5, 2010. Defendants’ response must be filed no later than December 7, 2010. A hearing is scheduled for January 12, 2011.
Plaintiffs are represented by Barroway Topaz Kessler Meltzer & Check LLP of Radnor, PA and Salpeter Gitkin, LLP of Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
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Pandoras Box
The judge realized the time and money needed to prove anything would be a waste of the courts time. That’s why the elaborate schemes were made by Ginn, so no one would bother to dig into the volumes of paperwork, without spending more than what they would get back.
Sometimes a shotgun is appropriate
The judge’s ruling makes sense even to me not being a lawyer. But there was clearly deception, inflated appraisals by people who had vested interests, and apparent collusion. Further, the drop in values was well over twice what happend across Florida indicating things were awry.
That big a drop cannot be attributed to greed of investors alone. There had to have been deception.
The real question is whether the plaintiffs have sufficient evidence to support the narrower set of charges that will be issued in November.
Saw it coming
This is not a surprise. It seems to be the same response that other lawsuits have received. There was just no way a court would allow all of those different claims against that many different defendants in a single case. How would anything ever be awarded? If my issue was specifically with Ginn, a title company, and Wachovia and someone else had an issue with just SunTrust how would the court decide who got what.
I can’t imagine this is ever going to work.
Response to John
John, I understand your point, but I do not think the court would or should be influenced by the difficulty of who gets what damages. Their role is to adjudicate whether there were wrongdoings and practices that broke the laws and harmed the plaintiffs. Determination of damages should follow that adjutication.