Mega trial lawyer Mark Geragos is suing Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti over the county’s stay-at-home order, alleging the directive has caused a substantial drop in his law firm’s business and income, Law & Crime reports.
Five separate lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court over the mayor’s executive order. The first was filed on Thurday, and four additional complaints were filed Friday morning.
Geragos is suing on behalf of his own business and several clients–naming both Garcetti and Traveler’s Insurance as co-defendants in the lawsuits, each of which has been obtained by Law&Crime.
The high profile attorney is also suing in his individual capacity as a landlord, alleging that he’s “been forced to deal with unpaid rent and other related issues stemming from its tenants’ cessation of use with respect to the Insured Premises.”
While the law firm-specific lawsuit concedes the firm is not itself subject to the mandatory closure order due to its status as an “essential business,” Geragos argues that indirect effects of the countywide lock-down have “greatly limited” access to the firm’s office, which has “suffered immensely.”
“As a further direct and proximate result of the Order, [the law firm] has been forced to deal with a substantial loss in business traffic and client / law related business activities,” one of the filings, all of which are substantially similar, reads.
The lawsuits themselves include Garcetti in order to drive home the point that the mayor’s executive order prohibits access to various buildings owned by Geragos and the law firm, “or at least a significant limitation” on such access in the case of the law firm itself (due to its status as an “essential business”).
