Debra Opri’s bid to collect from Larry Birkhead is still a no go.
The judge who earlier rejected the attorney’s petition to enter arbitration with her ex-client in order to recoup what she says is $620,000 in unpaid legal fees seconded his own motion on Thursday, saying he won’t take new evidence into consideration.
“There are no new facts, circumstances or law,” Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles C. Lee, who ruled on Sept. 6 that Opri’s contract with Birkhead did not call for binding arbitration, wrote in a two-page opinion. “The declarations provided by [Opri] could have been supplied earlier in a timely fashion, but were not.”
The beleaguered family attorney, who’s been fired more than once this year (by Pamela Bach after she lost custody of her kids to David Hasselhoff and, most recently, by Jermaine Jackson), maintains there was a provision calling for arbitration in her and Birkhead’s retainer agreement.
Opri’s attorney, David B. Owen, said he’ll appeal Lee’s decision.
Opri filed her original complaint on May 29, stating Birkhead still owed her for the six months of work—including extensive travel and numerous company man hours—she put in helping him build his paternity case against Anna Nicole Smith.
After Opri went after him, Birkhead responded with a countersuit for fraud and legal malpractice, in which he claimed the L.A.-based attorney racked up an array of frivolous expenses while she was engaged in all that tiresome legal wrangling and then stuck him with the bill.
The two parted ways in March, about a month before DNA tests proved Birkhead was the biological father of Smith’s daughter, Dannielynn.
Birkhead has said Opri offered to represent him pro bono, suggesting the publicity from the case would be all the payment she’d need, and he accused her of hanging onto the better portion of $870,000 he received for media appearances in the aftermath of Smith’s death.
The Kentucky-born photographer petitioned successfully in June (his request was granted in July) to have Opri’s client trust account frozen until the battle over their bill has been settled.
Birkhead’s attorney, Michael L. Trope, said Thursday that the latest ruling paves the way for his client to take Opri to trial and ask for punitive damages, and that he hopes to depose Opri soon.
A status conference was set for Dec. 20.
Opri has already returned the litigious favor, however. She sued Birkhead for fraud and defamation last month, accusing him of “engaging in a malicious and relentless media campaign to discredit me and to destroy my reputation,” after he said in an interview that Opri fed tell-all writer Rita Cosby info for her book about Smith, Blonde Ambition.
The inflammatory tome claims Birkhead and Howard K. Stern were romantically involved and conspired to get control over the late Playmate’s estate.
“It is clear now that Mr. Birkhead’s attempts to discredit me concerned what I knew and what might be exposed publicly...and not a legal bill,” Opri said in a statement. The $200,000 in damages she’s asking for will go toward the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, she added.
Meanwhile, Stern has filed a $60 million defamation suit against Cosby, with all proceeds going toward the National Organization Against Creeping People Out for Profit.
Wow never heard of creeping people out for profit
http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=a197190a-bc8b-468e-9bd2-22e478c51fef
Seems to me they got that mixed up. As Chief Cook, Bottle-Washer, Dog-Carrier and HouseSquatter of “People Who Creep People Out for Profit,” HKS would NOT be supportive of an organization formed specifically against HIM, lol.
A list of creepy people I would not let into my house would include HKS, KE, OJ, and Senator Reid