O'Melveny's 2018-2019 Pro Bono Review

O’MELVENY PRO BONO PROGRAM REVIEW 2018- 2019 12 that the father had said his preferred discipline methods were “threats and intimidation.” After the father attempted to get his children to recant their sworn statements, O’Melveny brought this and other behavior to the court’s attention. The judge immediately issued an emergency order, leading the father to agree to grant the mother primary custody and preventing the children from being moved out of state. Reducing Financial Hardships An O’Melveny team secured an appellate victory for a survivor of domestic abuse who had been saddled with a jury verdict that called for her to pay the man who had abused her. The man had brought a civil case against her for alleged torts, mostly associated with her reporting his abuse. In 2008, O’Melveny’s client left her husband after years of physical and emotional abuse, as well as intense surveillance of her daily activities, and obtained a protective order against him. She then reported him on several subsequent occasions for violations of the protective order, including trespassing and stalking, but did not litigate those violations to judgment. The parties were divorced in 2011. Her ex-husband then exploited the Maryland legal system to try to terrorize her with unfounded accusations and charges against her and anyone who helped her. He filed lawsuits against the court-appointed attorney who represented the daughter’s interests in the divorce proceedings, the daughter’s therapist, a custody evaluator, a neighbor and friend, and her former attorney, among others. In July 2011, the ex-husband filed a 60-count tort complaint against his ex-wife, alleging she had committed various torts against him by “falsely” accusing him of violating her domestic-violence protective order, and allegedly assaulting him. Astonishingly, a jury awarded him more than $1.7 million in damages. In 2013, a circuit court reduced the judgment to a still exorbitant $420,825. At this point, O’Melveny was engaged to appeal the judgment to the Maryland Court of Special Appeals (“COSA”). O’Melveny argued that the trial court had failed to properly instruct the jury and barred the introduction of relevant evidence. COSA dismissed four of the claims and “remand[ed] to the circuit court for the limited purpose of recalculating the amount of remittitur, minus the awards for the reversed claims.” The ex-husband then filed a motion regarding recalculation of the remittitur, and before O’Melveny could respond, the court reduced the judgment (without explanation) by just $6,500. O’Melveny then returned to COSA, this time appealing the meager adjustment. COSA instructed the Circuit Court to “provide an explanation for the amounts the court decides to include in a revised remittitur.” O’Melveny finally had an opportunity to explain—in briefing and at oral argument in the spring of 2018—why $414,325 was a punitive award for our client’s reasonable conduct and requested that the court enter a revised remittitur of no more than $20,325. Due to the limits of the appealable issues, O’Melveny was not able to argue that the award be eliminated in its entirety. An O’Melveny team secured an appellate victory for a survivor of domestic abuse who had been saddled with a jury verdict that called for her to pay the man who had abused her.