Recently, the lawsuit filed by Houston lawyer Tony Buzbee — one that he points to as the genesis of his own recent legal battles — was dropped.
It was four months ago when Buzbee began filing dozens of lawsuits on behalf of plaintiffs who alleged they were sexually assaulted by Sean “Diddy” Combs, and as his list of clients making similar allegations grew to more than 150, a new defendant was named.
In December, Buzbee filed an amended lawsuit on behalf of Jane Doe in the Southern District of New York accusing Shawn Carter, known as Jay-Z, of “drugging and raping a 13-year-old girl” alongside Combs at a party following the 2000 Video Music Awards. But in a notice filed with the court Feb. 14 (and refilled because of a procedural deficiency Feb. 18), Buzbee and his cocounsel, Antigone Curis of New York, let the court know they wouldn’t be pursuing the claim any longer.
“Pursuant to Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, plaintiff Jane Doe, by and through her undersigned counsel, hereby gives notice that the above-captioned action is voluntarily dismissed with prejudice,” the notice reads. “Counsel for plaintiff have discussed this matter with counsel for each defendant, who acknowledge and consent to this submission.”
But the dismissal of that suit has not brought an end to the claims against Buzbee. Below is a look at the pending cases, the lawyers involved, and what comes next.
Jay-Z’s LA Lawsuit
On Nov. 18, Jay-Z filed a lawsuit as John Doe in California Superior Court in Los Angeles against Buzbee. At that point, Jay-Z was still an anonymous “Celebrity A” in the federal lawsuit in New York where Buzbee was representing the 13-year-old Jane Doe who alleged she was raped by Jay-Z and Combs.
Jay-Z identified himself as the plaintiff in the case via a declaration filed Feb. 10. The suit accuses Buzbee and his firm of “shamelessly attempting to extort exorbitant sums from him or else publicly file wildly false horrific allegations against him.”
Buzbee has moved to dismiss the Los Angeles lawsuit under California’s anti-SLAPP law — a law meant to bring an early end to lawsuits that are brought with intent to chill free speech.
On Feb. 10, Jay-Z filed a response to Buzbee’s motion to dismiss. The response squarely addressed public comments Buzbee previously made that the pre-suit demand letters he sent to Jay-Z on behalf of his client were garden variety.
“Where Buzbee crossed the line, and what sets this case apart from most pre-litigation threats is that he not only threatened civil litigation against Mr. Carter if he did not pay his clients, but criminal proceedings and a ‘public spectacle’ as well,” the filing reads. “That renders his conduct extortion, as a matter of law, and bars him from invoking the anti-SLAPP statute.”
“Buzbee’s defense is that he threatened criminal proceedings only in his public statements and did not repeat them in his demand letters to Mr. Carter. But the law draws no such distinction. Buzbee’s statements must be taken in their entirety, and his demand letters to Mr. Carter must be read in context. To hold otherwise would reward clever extortionists.”
Jay-Z alleges the allegations in the lawsuit caused him and Roc Nation to lose $20 million in annual revenue in sports and entertainment contracts.
In a response filed Feb. 18, Buzbee argued Jay-Z had distorted facts and misstated the law in arguing that the lawsuit should survive his dismissal bid.
“Carter’s claims arise from protected conduct: litigation activity and public statements on a topic of significant public interest,” Buzbee argued. “Thus, Carter bears the burden of establishing that he has pled legally viable claims and substantiated them with competent evidence. He fails to satisfy that burden. … Carter filed this case for an improper purpose: to distract the media from accusations of his own misconduct, and to intimidate, harass, and deter those who might date accuse him of wrongdoing. This is exactly the type of frivolous, bad faith case that California’s anti-SLAPP statute is intended to eliminate.”
Also on Feb. 18, Jay-Z asked the court to take judicial notice that Buzbee had dropped the sexual assault suit against him in New York.
“Given that Mr. Buzbee filed the dismissal four days after Mr. Carter filed his opposition to the anti-SLAPP motion, Mr. Carter could not have made the dismissal a part of his opposition.”
“The voluntary dismissal with prejudice is relevant to Mr. Carter’s opposition to defendants’ pending special motion to strike (anti-SLAPP motion), which attacks the legal and factual bases of Mr. Carter’s claims for extortion, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress,” the pleading reads. “The gravamen of Mr. Carter’s claims is that Mr. Buzbee failed to properly investigate Jane Doe’s claims before Mr. Buzbee publicly accused Mr. Carter of rape and threatened to refer him to law enforcement authorities, and then demanded that Mr. Carter pay his client ‘something of substance’ to buy her silence and avoid a ‘public spectacle’ and litigation.”
Judge Mark H. Epstein has scheduled a hearing for 9 a.m. Tuesday on Buzbee’s anti-SLAPP motion.
Jay-Z is represented by Robert M. Schwartz, Michael Lifrak, B. Dylan Proctor and Mari F. Henderson of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
Buzbee and his firm are represented by Camille Vasquez, Samuel A. Moniz, J. Randall Boyer and Melissa M. Mikail of Sheppard Mullin.
The case number in Los Angeles County Superior Court is 24SMCV05637.
Buzbee’s Former Clients Sue Him in Louisiana Federal Court
Just a few weeks after Jay-Z filed the Los Angeles lawsuit, two federal lawsuits were filed in the Eastern District of Louisiana against Buzbee and his firm by two former clients, Matthew Ray Thompson Jr. and Adam Guidry, who allege they were taken advantage of by their former lawyer.
Thompson filed suit Dec. 9 and Guidry filed suit Dec. 13, according to court records.
Guidry, a ship captain who was injured on the job, alleges Buzbee “coerced him into settling” for an amount much lower than what he initially said the case was worth and that he ended up only receiving about $5,000 of the roughly $300,000 settlement.
Guidry’s suit brings claims for breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and negligence.
Thompson is also a seaman who was injured on the job and represented by Buzbee. He alleges Buzbee took more than 60 percent of his settlement proceeds and that he also purported to give Thompson some of the settlement proceeds via high-interest loans. His suit brings claims for breach of fiduciary duty, fraud and conversion.
In late January, Buzbee filed motions for sanctions in both cases, arguing the complaints contain “multiple immaterial, impertinent and scandalous accusations which bear no relevance or relationship to plaintiff’s claims.”
“These allegations violate Rule 11(b)(1) because they were included by plaintiff’s attorneys for an improper purpose, namely to harass and intimidate the Buzbee defendants and to damage their reputations,” he argued.
Buzbee told the court the plaintiffs’ lawyers “knew or should have known, of the existence of evidence that clearly refutes the factual allegations plaintiff makes in the complaint.”
Guidry and Thompson Jr. are represented by Timothy W. Porter of Porter & Malouf.
Buzbee is represented by William P. Gibbens, Andrea V. Timpa and Joelle Evans of Schonekas, Evans, McGoey & McEachin.
The case numbers in the Eastern District of Louisiana are 2:24-cv-02827 and 2:24-cv-02873.
Buzbee Sues in Harris County
While the lawsuits against Buzbee in Louisiana involve two former clients, in subsequent lawsuits filed in Harris County against Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, Mississippi lawyer Marcy Bryan Croft and her law firm MJ Legal and Jay-Z’s Roc Nation, Buzbee alleges the defendants had committed barratry by trying to recruit other former clients to bring suit against him.
Buzbee had originally filed the lawsuits on behalf of two former clients (Jose Maldonado and Gerardo Garcia) and his own firm in Harris County District Court in December and January, but the defendants removed them to federal court.
In that trio of suits, Buzbee alleges it was the addition of Jay-Z as a defendant in the New York federal lawsuit that spawned the litigation brought against him by former clients in Louisiana. Buzbee has alleged it was really the law firm representing Jay-Z, Quinn Emanuel, that was “orchestrating” the filing of the lawsuits against him. Buzbee also accused Croft and her law firm of helping to orchestrate the filing of what he has alleged are retaliatory and baseless lawsuits.
“Defendants have conspired to obstruct justice by engaging in shadowy operatives to illegally seek out more than two dozen current and former clients of The Buzbee Law Firm to convince those clients to bring frivolous cases against The Buzbee Law Firm,” Buzbee alleges. “Defendant Roc Nation is financing the effort. Its attorneys, Marcy Croft and Quinn Emanuel, are orchestrating the effort. In some cases, defendants’ agents pretend to work for the State of Texas and have flashed fake badges. Soliciting clients is a crime in the State of Texas. Paying individuals to file false claims is unethical and criminal in the State of Texas. Impersonating a state official is a crime.”
He has accused the defendants of offering to pay his former clients to bring lawsuits against him. The defendants have argued the lawsuits rest on “invented facts and baseless claims,” and said Buzbee, “faced with these serious claims” brought by former clients in Louisiana, “filed suits like this one to try and chill additional lawsuits from former personal injury clients.”
On Thursday, Buzbee filed an unopposed motion to consolidate the three cases currently pending in federal court, telling Judge Hanks all three cases “name the same defendants and allege claims involving common questions of fact and law; consolidation will serve judicial economy and conserve the time and resources of the parties.”
U.S. District Judge George C. Hanks Jr., who was assigned to one of the three cases, held a pre-motion conference last week where David Fortney of The Buzbee Law Firm, who represents the firm and two plaintiffs who brought the suits in Houston, told the court he will be seeking to remand the lawsuits back to state court.
Garcia and Maldonado are represented by Tony Buzbee and David C. Fortney of The Buzbee Law Firm.
Croft and MJ Legal are represented by Gregg J. Costa, Sydney Scott, Johanna E. Smith and Reed Brodsky of Gibson Dunn.
Roc Nation is represented by L. Bradley Hancock, Maria Gil and Megan Healy Schmid of Holland & Knight
Quinn Emanuel is represented by Lauren M. Black, Michael Williams and Robert Ford of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings.
The case numbers in the Southern District of Texas are 4:25-cv-00345; 4:25-cv-00353 and 4:25-cv-00385.