In Ashegian v. Beirne, an unpublished opinion, the court used procedural grounds to affirm dismissal of claims against a lawyer for allegedly deceptive advertising. I thought that the allegations might be interesting to our audience, with the caveat that they are only dismissed allegations. (I've often wondered about how quickly lawyer advertising might comply with bright line rules if lawyers could easily enforce the rules on each other.) Excerpt:
Plaintiff and appellant Marc Ashegian appeals from the judgment entered after the trial court sustained a general demurrer to the complaint he filed against defendants []. Ashegian’s complaint alleged a cause of action under Business and Professions Code section 6158.4, based on internet advertising by respondents that allegedly violated State Bar Act regulations (§§ 6158, 6158.1, and 6158.3) governing the content of electronic media advertising for legal services. The court sustained the demurrer on the ground that the complaint failed to allege that Ashegian previously had submitted a complaint regarding the allegedly unlawful advertisements to the State Bar and otherwise complied with the State Bar review procedures set forth in section 6158.4. On appeal, Ashegian contends that the plain language of the statute excuses California residents from following the State Bar review procedures before filing a civil enforcement action. We conclude that neither the plain language of the statute nor the relevant legislative history supports Ashegian’s interpretation, and we affirm the judgment.
The complaint alleged that respondent [] maintained a “banner ad” on the website associated with the newspaper Balita that is distributed to the Filipino-American community in Los Angeles County. According to the complaint, when an internet user clicked on the banner ad, he or she was directed to respondent[]’s web page instead, which Ashegian alleged constituted a deceptive act. The complaint further alleged that []’s web page featured a video of an unidentified woman making false, misleading or deceptive statements of support for the [] law office. Ashegian sought $5,000 fines against respondents for each allegedly deceptive broadcast as well as attorneys fees.
Two weeks later, Ashegian amended his complaint to state that following service of the original complaint on respondents, internet users who clicked on the banner ad for [] were no longer routed to []’s web page. Instead, users were directed to []’s single-page website, which stated, “We are a federally designated debt relief agency,” language which Ashegian alleges does not satisfy the requirements set forth in 11 United States Code section 528, subdivisions (a)(3) and (4), (b)(1). The complaint further alleged that a blog posting by [] falsely stated that []’s firm had been handling bankruptcy cases for over a decade, when in fact [] was a new admittee in his mid-twenties.