PHOENIX (Legal Newsline) - An Arizona appeals court upheld the dismissal of disbarred attorney Peter Strojnik’s lawsuit against Attorney General Mark Brnovich and an order of sanctions against Strojnik for filing more than 1,700 disability lawsuits to allegedly shake down defendants for fees.
Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals rejected Strojnik’s attempt to revive his lawsuit against AG Brnovich for allegedly conspiring with the State Bar of Arizona to shut down his practice and deny his clients the right to pursue Americans with Disabilities Act claims. AG Brnovich intervened in Strojnik’s lawsuits to stop what he called a “serial litigator,” and in 2018 the SBA launched an investigation that ended with Strojnik consenting to disbarment in 2019.
In June 2019, several months after he lost his license to practice law, Strojnik gave notice to the AG he intended to sue, which he did in September. But the trial court dismissed the claim, partly because Strojnik missed deadline for giving notice of his intention of suing the state within 180 days of when he became aware of a claim. Strojnik had submitted an editorial criticizing Brnovich for intervening in his cases back in December 2018 and the bar association began the process of suspending his license in march 2018.
“The op-ed expressed Strojnik’s beliefs regarding AG Brnovich’s putative motivations behind the intervention and implied AG Brnovich had aligned with a group impeding ADA-related litigation,” the appeals court said in a July 20 decision. “It was not error to dismiss Strojnik’s claims as time-barred.”
Strojnik also challenged the sanctions order requiring him to pay AG Brnovich’s fees, to no avail. He argued his lawsuit wasn’t sanctionable under the right to petition the government in the Arizona Constitution.
“But the right to petition the government does not extend to frivolous or harassing lawsuits brought in bad faith, which is what the superior court found Strojnik’s claims to be,” the appeals court said.
Strojnik’s victims said he had a practice of suing over minor ADA violations and then refusing to withdraw his lawsuits, even after businesses corrected the violations, unless they paid him at least $5,000 in fees. A federal judge once described his methods as an “unethical extortion of unreasonable attorney’s fees from defendants.”