A brief explanation of civil lawsuits and where to file them
Civil suits can be filed against another party for reasons including alleged negligence, product liability, marriage and children, money and debt and injury.
Civil suits can be filed against another party for reasons including alleged negligence, product liability, marriage and children, money and debt and injury.
A recently filed lawsuit has pitted father and son against each other.
George Sink Sr.’s law firm has filed a lawsuit against his son, George “Ted” Sink Jr. and his newly created law firm over naming rights.
The suit — which pits George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers, founded by George Sink Sr., against George “Ted” Sink Jr., George Sink II Law Firm, LLC, George Sink Law Firm (George Sink III), LLC and Southern Legal Association, LLC — is over the plaintiff’s claims of trademark infringement, unfair competition, cybersquatting, unfair and deceptive trade practices and dilution by the defendant, according to a court filing.
“My father is suing me to take away the name he gave me,” George Sink Jr. said Friday. “He seems to value his brand over his son. It’s devastating.”
The lawsuit — filed in the District of South Carolina’s Charleston Division — contends that after Ted Sink was fired from his father’s law firm in February 2019 over a confidentiality and non-solicitation agreement, he started his own law firm with a similar name and began making money off legal counsel in the same areas in which George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers, based in Charleston, operates. The suit also contends that the belief was that Sink II and Sink III were preparing to launch a television advertising campaign decades after the plaintiff — which is trademarked — had already established itself through those media as “well-known by the general consuming public throughout South Carolina and Georgia.”
The suit also contends that Sink II and Sink III created online business listings that caused George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers to be flagged by Google and suspended because of name overlap and similar geographical location, thus making it no longer appear in Google search results. The lawsuit states that the plaintiff lost more than 600 positive Google reviews and, despite two weeks of working with Google to get the business relisted, it still has not recovered from the temporary suspension. It contends that George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers had to reallocate resources to search engine optimization repair efforts “to the detriment of other business needs.”
The suit states that Sink II has been making money off of a website whose URL is georgesinklawfirm.com. It contends that the addition of “II” to the George Sink trademark makes the businesses “nearly identical in sight, sound, pronunciation, spelling, meaning and overall commercial impression,” and says that the defendant does not have trademark rights to use “George Sink” or “any other confusingly similar George Sink-formative marks, including the designation George Sink II,” in its name.
On the George Sink II Law Firm website, it says the law firm is distinct from his father with no affiliation other than the family ties.
The suit says that the extent to which “George T. Sink Jr.” is the defendant’s name is believed to be misleading because he has long had the preference of going by Ted.
However, George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers itself referred to the son as George Sink Jr., not Ted Sink, in an article posted on its website while he was in law school.
The Sink Law Firm did not respond to a request for a comment by the time of publication.
In conclusion, the suit states that the fact the defendant is using a similar designation with identical services in the same geographical region is likely to cause confusion among consumers, and it says the plaintiff’s name, reputation and goodwill are suffering from “intentional, willful, malicious” wrongdoing that disregard the plaintiff’s rights.
George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers is seeking punitive damages, but an amount is not listed in the lawsuit.
Sink will have the opportunity to submit a formal response to the lawsuit within the next couple weeks.