Pittsburgh personal injury law firm Friday & Cox says online marketing company FindLaw duped it into paying nearly $300,000 for a shoddy website and lackluster social media presence, but FindLaw says the firm still owes it $37,000 plus interest and is in breach of contract for failing to pay.
In an Oct. 9 filing in the case, Friday & Cox admitted that there is currently an outstanding balance of $36,901.72 on its contract with FindLaw but argued that the company is not entitled to that money because it failed to render the services it was contractually obligated to provide.
Friday & Cox originally filed the complaint in the Allegheny County Court of Common Pleas against FindLaw, West Publishing Corp. and Reuters Holdings. The defendants removed the suit to the Western District of Pennsylvania on April 25.
On Aug. 16, a federal judge granted FindLaw’s request to transfer the lawsuit from the Western District of Pennsylvania to the District of Minnesota based on the forum-selection clause in a series of contracts entered into by the parties.
The complaint alleged the defendants fraudulently induced Friday & Cox to enter into several contracts by promising that FindLaw would increase the firm’s online advertising and marketing and would optimize the firm’s website and Facebook page to attract more clients.
Instead, the complaint alleged, the website FindLaw created “was not properly optimized for anything relating to auto accidents, injuries and workers’ compensation cases in the Pittsburgh and Erie, Pennsylvania geographic areas.”
Meanwhile, the FindLaw-created Facebook page garnered only 68 “likes,” according to the complaint.
Friday & Cox said in the complaint that it paid the defendants $297,202 between Aug. 26, 2010, and Oct. 24, 2017, at which point the firm stopped making payments.
“As a direct and proximate result of the fraud, misrepresentations, breaches of contract, breaches of both implied and express warranties, negligence, carelessness and recklessness of FindLaw, plaintiff sustained actual monetary damages, and has wasted money and time on FindLaw’s ineffective marketing and advertising services that could have been allocated to more productive business, advertising and/or marketing uses,” the complaint said.
The complaint included claims for breach of contract, fraud, breach of warranty and violations of the Pennsylvania Unfair Trade Practices and Consumer Protection Law.
But on Aug. 30, the defendants responded with an answer to the complaint in which they rejected Friday & Cox’s claims and lodged counterclaims for breach of contract and services rendered.
“Plaintiff breached the terms of the service agreements with defendant West by failing to pay defendant West as agreed and there remains an unpaid, overdue balance of $36,901.72, plus interest at the rate provided by law,” the defendants said in the answer.
On Oct. 9, Friday & Cox filed its answer to the counterclaims, arguing that it acted in accordance with underlying agreements in refusing to pay the balance because the defendants failed to render the agreed-upon services.
“Plaintiff specifically denies that defendants suffered any actual damages; however, if such damages do exist, plaintiff asserts that such damage claims are subject to the defense of failure to mitigate,” the firm said in the filing, adding, “Any recovery by defendants is barred by their own improper conduct or ‘unclean hands,’ including conduct that caused or attributed to the alleged damages.”
Counsel for the defendants, Michael Etmund of Moss & Barnett in Minneapolis, did not return a call seeking comment. Counsel for Friday & Cox, Jared Goerlitz of Goerlitz Law in St. Paul, Minnesota, also did not return a call for comment.
The Friday & Cox litigation is similar to another lawsuit filed against FindLaw and West Publishing by Dallas attorney Rogge Dunn this past spring.
Dunn, principal of litigation firm Rogge Dunn Group, alleged that he was duped into thinking FindLaw would create a unique website for his new law firm but instead provided one that was “cookie cutter” and “unimaginative.”
“FindLaw also promised to develop a unique and individually customized website for Dunn and his law firm, Rogge Dunn Group P.C.,” according to the petition Dunn filed in a Dallas County Court of Law in May. “The website that FindLaw gave to Dunn contained basic, unimaginative images and stock language. FindLaw uses a generic ‘cookie cutter’ approach for hundreds of attorneys nationwide. The website provided is anything but unique, or customized to Dunn’s law practice.”
Dunn also alleged in the lawsuit that once an attorney stops using FindLaw, the company “flips a switch” that essentially removes the benefit of the 12 months of search engine optimization (SEO) already paid for.
In July, West Publishing filed a motion to dismiss Dunn’s suit for failing to file it in Minnesota pursuant to the forum-selection clause.
As of press time, the last entry on the docket was for a hearing on the motion to dismiss, which was scheduled for Aug. 29.