Well, that certainly throws his “thick, sticky coating” line into a new light.
It’s a beautiful letter, and one I wish I had the wit to write, but I’d probably save it as a draft and edit for jackassery and patronizing tone.
Sometimes jackassery and some patronizing are called for. This is one of those times.
In case anyone’s curious, there’s a link to the initial demand letter here (warning: PDF) from the page that nyctea scandiaca linked to.
I’m looking forward to that joint statement being released. 
But, of course, situations like this make you wonder how often people are brow-beaten into believing they’re doing something wrong or something that will get them in trouble by lawyers who know that those folks just don’t know any better. Most people can’t afford or get the attention of a Randazza. So, I imagine a lot of lawyers get away with that sort of bullying.
So, does getting screwed over by a Hyundai dealership get filed under “Fuckingmachines”?
My favorite part is when the lawyer writes, “that compliment out of the way.”
It reminds me of the “having said that” discussion on the season finale (season 7) of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Here’s a link to the media letter for those who hate C&Ping from Google doc .pdfs:
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2009/dec/16/russ-lemmon-auto-dealership-demands-comments-be/
He could also be a clever wanker. Seems to be a sub-specialty of lawyers. And when the wanker wins your case with wankery, it can be hard to argue with the results.
In Florida? An example of the stupid lawyering" that drives up the cost of everything in this country!
I wonder what he charged to write this stupid piece of excrement?
Let me guess-the guy rents a re car and almost wrecks t-then he gets pissed off when his little scam is exposed.
I wonder if the Florida Bar Assn. is aware of what an idiot they have here?
Impressive issue spotting skills.
If you actually read the letter, then you know that’s not even close to what happened.
The guy didn’t rent anything. He was given a loaner. When he saw the car, he told them that he lived down a dirt road, and that it might not be the best car for that purpose. They told him not to worry about. He returns the car, and it’s dirty from driving down the dirt road, which he had warned them it would be. They want a thousand doallars to clean the car. His insurance company says they’ll pay a little less than half. The dealership then calls him and tells him (not knowing he had already talked to his insurance company) that they would be willing to accept half – in other words, they were trying to scam him by double-dipping him after gettiing the insurance offer.
So he started saying “Route 60 Hyndai sucks” on his Twitter account, and they tried to intimidate him with a lawyer’s letter making completely baseless threats to take legal action if he did not “GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.”
The bottom line is that he had the first amendment right to say that “Route 60 Hyndai” sucks, and Route 60 has no actionable claim of defamation against him, period. Their lawyers had to know that, so the letter was a pure attempt at bullying and intimidation. THAT might be the lawyer who needs to be looked at, as well as the dealership itself for a possible attempt at insurance fraud.
Right, and the lawyer then chose to draft a letter which, likely by design, got internet attention (the “Streisand effect” described in the letter itself) - knowing that there wasn’t anything that the dealership or their lawyer could do about it.
Interesting side question: if the lawyer’s account of the alleged double-dipping is in fact wholly invented and was designed purely to damage the reputation of the dealership via the “Streisand effect”, would the letter be actionable or covered by some form of privilege?
When I lived in Philadelphia, there was a car buyer who was very upset about his purchase being a “lemon”. So he placed the car across the road from the dealership and applied hundreds of lemon halves to the vehicle. He made it his mission to get the dealership, hanging out each day with a sign about the dealership selling lemons. There were newspaper stories and lawsuits.
This was back in the late 80s, and the whole “lemon law” thing complicates searching.
No, it wasn’t. As much as I enjoyed reading it, it’s unprofessional. There are much better, albeit less entertaining ways, for one lawyer to tell another lawyer “I understand why you did what you did, but you and I both know it will never work. Please advise your client accordingly.” It reads like it was written in the hopes that it would become public. Randazza’s stroking himself with glee.
Ralph124c, did you read the letter which contains a factual summary of what transpired? Did you read the tweets which were alleged to be defamatory? Did you read the letter which counsel for the dealership sent to Mr. Alascio? The dealership’s attorney sent a generic form letter which he didn’t put together. Apparently the letter didn’t comply with the statutory requirements in that it didn’t list the defamatory messages.
The reply letter does a good job of establishing Mr. Alascio’s position, why the statements in questions are not defamatory under the law and that should the dealership proceeds despite that, that Mr. Alascio intends to file a counterclaim and move for the appropriate sanctions under Florida law. I think that a letter like this can be very effective in making it clear that you are going to fight this and that you had better be rock solid about the merits of your case before going forward.
It probably didn’t cost Mr. Alascio that much to get the letter written. Mr. Randazza specializes in this kind of issue and as such is probably very familiar with these issues. He didn’t have to spend a lot of time researching the appropriate law since he is probably very familiar with it and has probably written dozens of these letters.
There is nothing in the letter to suggest that the damage to the car was dirt. The dealership claimed “$1000 in damage”. I can’t possibly conceive of a way that dirt could cause $1000 of damage, or how an insurance claim could be made for same. Additionally, most dealerships have car washes on the premises.
I have a feeling the damages to the car were not detailed in the letter because they were not, in fact, consistent with the typical result of driving a car down a long dirt road.
Or maybe they didn’t exist. The fact that the dealership tried to scam the guy for a double-payment does not do much for their credibility in claiming damages.
No, it doesn’t. But trumping the damages as “dirt” doesn’t help your defense, either.
It could be that the client was lying. It could also go the other way, that the dealership was trying to scam the client. If the attempt at double-dipping is reported accurately, then that’s pretty plausible. Either way, the client indicated they were willing to pay what the insurance company told them to pay; it’s only when the employee got caught trying to double-dip that it escalated to enmity.
It has yet to be established that there were damages.
That’s not consequential to the alleged “defamation” anyway.