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Litigious duo face possible jail time

By: Eric Heisig//July 10, 2014//

Litigious duo face possible jail time

By: Eric Heisig//July 10, 2014//

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Attorneys who have been targeted by two Madison artists who made a reputation for themselves by filing frivolous claims against attorneys want a judge to put a stop to things, with jail time if necessary.

Cartoonist Rodney Rigsby and glassblower/painter Quincy Neri are scheduled to appear Monday morning in front of Dane County Circuit Judge John Markson to defend themselves against requests by attorneys who want the judge hold them in contempt of court for continuing to litigate two dismissed lawsuits after the judge told them in an April 15 letter to stop (PDF).

“By this letter,” Markson wrote April 15, “I am reiterating … what has been stated before: this case is over. Neither of you may do anything in furtherance of the positions you have asserted in this case, and if you do, you will face a further sanction and will invite a determination that you are in contempt of court.”

The duo, along with children’s entertainer Catherine “The Banana Lady” Conrad, have amassed 25 lawsuits against 103 defendants, with many defendants being sued more than once in state and federal court. Several of the defendants are attorneys and insurance providers who represented other people in prior cases the trio brought.

And while the trio had some success early on, their suits repeatedly have been thrown out as being frivolous. As of March, they had amassed more than $150,000 in judgments, of which only $80 has been paid, and scorn from state and federal judges, yet continue to litigate. Conrad filed a suit Monday in Dane County Circuit Court.

“We’re kind of concerned now that they’ve reached the end of the rope,” said Cathleen Dettman, an attorney with Haley Palmersheim SC, Madison and a defendant. “Nobody knows what they’ll do now.”

Monday’s hearing pertains to two dismissed lawsuits Rigsby and Neri filed against 28 defendants over “Mendota Reflection,” a piece of art commissioned in 2008 as part of the remodeling of a Madison condominium. According to court papers, the contractor for the remodeling, Architectural Building Arts Inc., used project photos, in which Mendota Reflection can be seen in the background, on its website and for a competition.

In 2011, Neri and Rigsby copyrighted the piece of art and promptly sued the contractor as well as Eric Ferguson, who took the photos. Since then, six more related cases were filed.

All of them except for one have been dismissed and upheld on appeal. As a result, Neri is barred from filing new lawsuits related to the situation, until she pays off thousands of dollars in unpaid judgments.

But according to briefs from attorneys on behalf of those sued, Rigsby and Neri, along with Conrad, continued to serve claims on insurance companies and malpractice carriers after Markson sent the letter. Attorney and defendant David Pliner of Corneille Law Group LLC, Madison, said the pair served claims as recently as last week.

A brief, jointly filed by Pliner and Grace Kulkoski of Peterson, Johnson & Murray SC, asks the judge to consider requiring the pair to get a judge’s approval before filing a suit.

According to a brief filed June 2 by defendant and attorney Timothy Barber of Axley Brynelson LLP, Madison, “Neri and Rigsby have demonstrated that they intend to continue to pursue the baseless claims they made in this lawsuit and now want to add additional parties. … Their actions have expended considerable judicial resources, not to mention the lost time and money to defendant law firm.”

Barber’s brief asks Markson to find the pair in contempt and permanently enjoin them from filing any more cases in the situation.

And a letter Dettman sent to the judge requests he consider throwing the pair in jail.

“We have tried every other kind of sanction and nothing seems to be working,” according to Dettman’s June 4 letter.

Dettman’s letter also includes an excerpt from a letter Rigsby sent to Travis West, an attorney involved in several of the cases. According to the letter:

“Attorney West indicates that Rodney Rigsby had threatened him directly, stating: ‘You are gonna pay the price in the future … I know exactly what you do every single day, every moment. You don’t know who I am, you really don’t know who I am … I will make it my life’s work to destroy you.’”

Neri did not return a voicemail left Thursday. When reached Thursday, Rigsby accused a reporter of lying and said he was going to put the reporter “on notice,” before hanging up.

According to Neri’s reply to the contempt requests, she and Rigsby are not in contempt of court “because Plaintiffs’ have not filed any new lawsuits against these Defendants’, their attorneys, law firms or insurance.”

“There is no court order that does not permit Plaintiffs’ to make ‘claims’ against Defendants,’” according to Neri’s brief.

But Dettman and the other attorneys are hoping that Markson follows through with his threat to hold the pair in contempt.

“While I realize that requesting the sanction of jail time is severe,” Dettman wrote in her June 4 letter, “when all else fails, what more can one do to protect oneself and one’s family in these circumstances?”

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