District attorneys cannot use California’s Unfair Competition Law to prosecute lawyers for filing fraudulent disability complaints, California’s First Appellate District, Division Three, ruled Dec. 8.
The precedent-setting published ruling said that prosecutors can instead use Business and Professions Code Section 6128, which establishes attorney deceit to be a misdemeanor. Victims of attorney fraud also can work through the California State Bar’s disciplinary proceedings, the ruling said.
The ruling comes out of a joint prosecution by San Francisco and Los Angeles district attorneys against the firm Potter Handy, LLP. The prosecutors argued that Potter Handy’s cases “contain standing allegations Potter knows
