Crime, Law Schools, Lawsuit of the Day, Murder

Lawsuit of the Day: Can I Take Back That One Million Dollar Challenge?

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When Dustin Kolodziej was a student at the South Texas College of Law, he decided to take law school lessons outside of the classroom. While classmates were poring over contract law outlines, Kolodziej was watching Dateline and taking on million dollar challenges. Well, at least one such challenge — and now the recent graduate has filed a lawsuit alleging that a true offer was made and fulfilled.

In December 2006, Dateline reported on the execution-style murders of four people at a Florida business. Nelson Serrano, a wealthy businessman, was convicted of the deaths and is now on death row. During the course of the report, Dateline interviewed Serrano’s defense attorney, James Cheney Mason (who is most famous for representing diaper-wearing NASA astronaut, Lisa Nowak).

The murders happened in Central Florida. Serrano was in Georgia that day, and seen on surveillance cameras at an Atlanta La Quinta Inn shortly after the murders took place. In reconstructing the prosecution’s timeline for the day, Mason claimed there was only a 28-minute period during which Serrano could have gotten from the Atlanta Airport to his hotel. From an MSNBC transcript:

Mason: I challenge anybody to show me, I’ll pay them a million dollars if they can do it.
Murphy: If they can do it in the time alloted?
Mason: 28 minutes. Can’t happen. Didn’t happen.

Well, Kolodziej decided it could happen.


From Kolodziej’s complaint [PDF] (via Courthouse News Service)

Kolodziej–who was a law student at South Texas College of Law at the time–followed the Serrano case. He saw Mason issue the challenge and decided to accept it. He wanted to see if he could prove that the prosecution’s theory was correct and that Serrano could have murdered these three people. In December 2007–just after the tenth anniversary of the murders–Kolodziej travelled to Georgia to accept the challenge. He retraced Serrano’s alleged route, flying from Atlanta to Orlando, driving to the scene of the murders, then flying back to Atlanta. Kolodziej made the last leg of the journey–from the airplane to the La Quinta–within the required 28 minutes.

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Kolodziej taped his journey and sent it to Mason along with a request for the one million. Mason wrote back to say, uh, no, and that he would “consider any further communications from [Kolodziej] to be in the nature of attempted extortion and/or mail fraud, and [would] act accordingly.”

So, Kolodziej switched from the postal system to the courts, filing a one million dollar breach of contract complaint with the help of Connelly Baker partner David George. Good thing Mason didn’t promise a billion dollars.

We have many questions. Is Mason’s little quip on Dateline really an enforceable contract? Who is Dustin Kolodziej, and why are his current whereabouts not Google-able? How did he get a partner at Connelly Baker to take on his case? And, most importantly, why do we so dislike the design of the South Texas School of Law website?

The one question we can answer is how he got David George to take his case: networking at a Vietnamese restaurant. Kolodziej and George were both stranded at the restaurant during a hurricane last September. They chatted and Kolodziej shared his Dateline story. George, a longtime appellate lawyer, was intrigued.

George couldn’t tell us where Kolodziej is heading next, but he could explain why the law grad has not been quoted in any of the many stories about this case. He’s cut off contact with the world while studying for the Texas bar.

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Unfinished Business [MSNBC]
Lawyer Said to Owe $1 Million on TV Dare [Courthouse News Service]

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