TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – Hit with huge sanctions, a husband-and-wife are trying to appeal while asking a federal judge to punish the company they tried to sue under a federal telemarketing law.
Adam and Genese Lieberman, representing themselves, filed their opposition to a recent request made by Credit One Bank, which is owed nearly $360,000 in sanctions from the Liebermans. The bank filed a motion to compel discovery on the couple’s financials, stating a concern they “transferred or are in the process of transferring assets to avoid collection.”
This baseless claim, the Liebermans argue, should subject Credit One Bank to sanctions of its own. They seek $75,000 for “acting in bad faith and misleading the court,” as well as $25,000 for Credit One’s “Frivolous and misleading motion for contempt.”
Meanwhile, they are seeking a stay of collection on the judgment while they pursue an appeal of it.
Lieberman once claimed he made one-third of his annual income from lawsuits brought under the TCPA, which allows plaintiffs to sue telemarketers and debt collectors and impose penalties of up to $1,500 per call.
Previous Legal Newsline coverage has chronicled professional plaintiffs, one of who admitted to trying to game the system to manufacture calls. Another plaintiff has made more than $800,000 filing lawsuits.
Lieberman only filed a handful of his lawsuits, but his arbitration case against Credit One has him facing more than $300,000 in penalties. When he filled out a credit card application for his wife, he used his own phone number as a contact.
The Liebermans went into default on the card’s balance. Credit One called Adam’s phone number more than 600 times to try to collect.
Adam went into arbitration to allege the calls were made using an automatic telephone dialing system and that they were unlawful harassment.
But Credit One filed cross-claims against the Liebermans and pointed to a clause in the customer agreement that required the Liebermans to pay the company’s attorneys fees and costs if they provided the wrong phone number, pursued legal action against it and lost.
That’s what happened. An arbitrator declared the Liebermans should pay Credit One $286,064.62.
The company filed a motion in federal court in February 2021 to confirm the arbitration award, which was granted. It then asked for more money because it incurred more fees and more costs confirming the arbitration award.
Judge Anne Thompson granted the request, leaving the total amount at $359,948.69.
“The court finds that the counsel for Credit One did a very professional job in this case, successfully arguing against the Liebermans’ opposition and obtaining judgment,” she wrote.