Reported today in the NYLJ, plaintiff won a discrimination case. Now the battle has ranged into a legal fees dispute with her attorney. Even on the verge of winning, plaintiff herself has been sanctioned $5000 by Justice Acosts of Supreme Court, New York County for a series of ex-parte faxes. “A Manhattan judge has sanctioned a pro se plaintiff $5,000 for “contumacious conduct” after she inundated the court with ex parte communications concerning a dispute with her former lawyer.””In an Aug. 10 ruling, Justice Acosta awarded Ms. Jordan $257,428 in attorney’s fees and Mr. Lebowitz $205,410. He then sanctioned Ms. Jordan.
“Although plaintiff has been proceeding pro se in the attorneys fees portion of this litigation, the Court can no longer ignore her conduct nor excuse it by plaintiff’s personal circumstances or her frustrating ten-year battle with defendants,” Justice Acosta wrote in Jordan v. Bates Advertising, 118783/99.”