Lawyer of the Day (Part Deux): SCOTUS Victor Has Choice Words for Losing Litigant's Lawyer

Last month, Steve Filarsky earned our Lawyer of the Day title after he sent a letter to a losing SCOTUS litigant, advising him to read the opinion “eternally from hell.” As it turns out, Filarsky wasn’t quite done with his vicious letter-writing campaign...

Last month, we brought you a story about a victorious party in a Supreme Court case, who just so happened to be an attorney himself. The lawyer in question, Steve Filarsky, earned our Lawyer of the Day title after he sent a letter to the losing litigant, advising him to read the SCOTUS opinion “eternally from hell.”

As it turns out, Filarsky wasn’t quite done with his charming letter-writing campaign. Someone else needed to pay for his apparent transgressions. Someone else needed to feel his dictated wrath.

But who was it this time? None other than the losing litigant’s lawyer in the underlying investigation. And boy, did Filarsky have some choice words for him….

Before we get to Filarsky’s letter, we’ll give you some background information on the investigation that led to the Supreme Court’s intervention (though we warn you, it’s relatively snooze worthy). Filarsky had been hired by the City of Rialto, California, to interview Nick Delia, a firefighter. Delia claimed he was out sick for three weeks, but Rialto wanted to know whether Delia had been missing work to do construction on his home.

(Because isn’t that what all firemen do when they’re sick? I mean, they have to do something when they’re taking time off from modeling for Stud of the Month calendars.)

Anyway, Delia said that while he’d purchased construction materials, he hadn’t started the project yet. Filarsky then demanded that the materials be presented for inspection. The Nine didn’t grace Delia’s attorney with so much as a courtesy name drop, but the resulting conversation made it into the Supreme Court opinion penned by Chief Justice John Roberts:

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Needless to say, everyone and their mother and their dog got sued, and the issue before SCOTUS was whether Filarsky was entitled to qualified immunity for performing work on a contract basis for a city government. The Ninth Circuit held that Filarsky was not entitled to immunity, so he appealed to One First Street. Filarsky received vindication on April 17, 2012, in a 9-0 opinion, reversing the decision.

You’ve seen what Filarsky had to say to Delia, but what did he have to say to Delia’s lawyer? Well, he continued with his eternal damnation motif, but he also took the time to do some name-calling….

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