Yesterday the Third District Court of Appeal of Florida issued an opinion which revisited the infamous "deep throat" case involving a corrupt claim supervisor at Royal Caribbean and a crooked Miami maritime lawyer.
The case is entitled Wingate v. Celebrity Cruises, Ltd. and is available online here.
You will recall that the case involved a local Miami lawyer, Jerrold Wingate, now disbarred, whose "investigator" was paying bribes to the former crew claims supervisor at Royal Caribbean / Celebrity Cruises who the crooked law firm called "deep throat." Mr. Wingate had a thriving business representing some 77 crew members against Royal and Celebrity. For a $500 bribe, the cruise line supervisor would tell the lawyer the amount of the settlement authority on a case and then the lawyer would not settle for a penny less.
Your can read my article: Royal Caribbean’s Deep Throat
Everyone got caught. A local judge ruled that the lawyer involved in the scheme would not receive any fees or costs spent on the cases. But Wingate went behind the judge’s back and entered into a secret agreement with new lawyers for the crewmembers to obtain fees and costs. Wingate got caught again. The judge found him in criminal contempt and reported him to the Florida Bar which eventually disbarred him.
Wingate filed an appeal of the denial of his efforts to obtain fees and costs after the judge said "I am not going to give him a nickel." He lost the appeal.
Undaunted, Wingate filed yet another motion to try and obtain costs he advanced on some of the cases.
Yesterday, the appellate put its foot down and said enough is enough. In denying the appeal, the appellate court held:
"Mr. Wingate was evidently unfazed by the order of criminal contempt, undaunted by the unsuccessful appeal of that order, and undeterred by the disciplinary proceedings and his ultimate disbarment. Four days after this Court issued the mandate in the first appeal, and in what appears to be a textbook example of legal chutzpah, Wingate filed a motion with the trial court for disbursement of costs . . . (emphasis added)
In a footnote, the court explained exactly what it meant by "chutzpah:"
"[T]his expressive Yiddish word appears in modern English dictionaries as meaning `colossal effrontery’ or `brazen gall’ but as stated in The Joys of Yiddish by Leo Rosten, "The classic definition of `chutzpah’ is that quality enshrined in a man, who having killed his mother and father, throws himself upon the mercy of the court because he is an orphan."