In 1990 Park Avenue family practice doctor, G.Peta Carrera, hired his girlfriend, Manhattan lawyer, Christine Anderson, to represent him in a civil suit where he was accused of sexually molesting a patient.
Because they had been together for ten years, Ms. Anderson did not insist on a cash retainer from Dr. Carrera but instead took the doctor’s Park Avenue apartment and his Mercedes Benz as security for her legal fees. Anderson and Carrera agreed that he would sell his apartment after the trial to pay his legal fees.
Ultimately, Dr. Carrera lost his civil suit with the jury awarding $1.4 million dollars to his former patient.
Dr. Carrera was in no hurry to pay off his former patient and also took his sweet time to sell his apartment. It wasn’t until 2011 that the apartment sold for $2 million dollars and he persuaded Ms. Anderson to falsely claim that her lien had been satisfied.
She said she agreed because “I trusted him and loved him; and I believed he would honor his word.” But Dr. Carrera was a dishonourable, irresponsible cad who continues to refuse to pay his bills, both to Ms. Anderson and his patient.
Last week Ms. Anderson filed a civil suit in Manhattan Supreme Court against her former lover where she wrote that she realized Carrera never intended to pay her. She is seeking $500,000 to cover her legal bill, $500,000 in a palimony claim and $2 million dollars in punitive damages.
Another case of love and legal fees being incompatible… a situation that arises more often than you may think. Many attorneys act for friends or family and suffer the same fate as Ms. Anderson, they get “stiffed” in circumstances where their friend, lover, or relative, who with effusive gratefulness accepts the legal services, refuses in the end to pay for them.
A word to the wise: If you really must act for a friend, lover, or relative, do it pro bono, or don’t do it at all.
Lawdiva aka Georgialee Lang
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