A LAWYER STORY The PSA Case by Dan Mckee

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Posted By: dan mckee

I hope none of you ever need a lawyer for any reason. Well I did. I needed a lawyer for a problem with PSA. I hired Adam Warshaw who is a regular visitor to this board. He took my case and though I had to pay him, it was evident that he took this case out of honor and heart as well.



If anyone here has ever hired a lawyer for anything, I hope you had the same feeling I did leaving the court room. I felt VERY WELL represented! Win, Lose or Draw, I felt that I more than received my money's worth.



I was represented by Adam Warshaw who absolutely did an incredible job! I flew home from California with a great feeling knowing that no matter the outcome, I was well represented.



This is a formal thanks to Adam - my lawyer. The outcome of the case will come shortly I am sure but no matter the outcome, Adam was well worth the money!



This is my thanks to a lawyer, a fellow collector, and a friend.


Thank you Adam, Dan Mckee.


Also a special thanks to those who helped me and put up with a dark side of me during this nightmare:

*Brian Daniels

*Greg Schwartz

*Wesley Lue

Todd Lemmings

Kevin Struss

Doug Allen

Bill Mastro

Lew Lipset

Leon Luckey

JC

Rhys

Matt Schwartz

Tom Lawrie

My dear father

my family and friends


A special thanks to my wife who stayed with me through the sleepless nights immediately after my card was lost! I have a super woman!


And a thanks to Peter Ma for not believing me at all from the start, I hope you are flipping burgers somewhere for a living!



the illini - for trashing me for posting PSA mistakes, I hope you forgive me, I really didn't want to pollute the collecting society with my problem. It just made me feel better. Thanks.

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Posted By: Julie

........

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Posted By: Gary B.

I needed a lawyer once badly, and he saved my butt like you wouldn't believe - I will never again say a bad word about lawyers again in my life. Now district attorneys on the other hand...

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Posted By: Rob L

finding the right lawyer who happens to be a fellow collector. At a minimum, I'm sure you have struck up a great friendship. Good luck with the outcome!

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Posted By: Darren J. Duet

In my line of business I deal with attorneys all year long, it would piss me off if I needed one for my passion. Good luck and God bless.

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Posted By: dan

I almost forgot! A super thanks to Anthony Nex who I met in Cleveland and helped me with the paperwork. Thanks A.

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Posted By: leon

Good job guys. Sounds like ya'll did your best. Hopefully justice will prevail.... and here's to keeping our fingers crossed for you.....best regards

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Posted By: Joe P.

Back in 1990, I also had the benefit of having a
counselor that knew my hobby well, and that helps a great deal.
Especially when your dealing with the Koos and altered Doyles.

May the Card Source be with you.

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Posted By: JIM MANOS

I BOUGHT 2 T210'S FROM ADAM A FEW WEEKS AGO AND HE SENT ME 6 AND TOLD ME TO KEEP THEM FOR MY COLLECTION FREE OF CHARGE. HE IS A SUPER GUY AND I HOPE HE AND EVERY OTHER FORUM 54 READER READS THIS POSTS. THANK'S ADAM, REGARDS, JIM MANOS

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Posted By: warshawlaw

It is rare that a lawyer gets to handle a case involving something he loves and then has such fun at trial, too. I will share the outcome of the trial with you once we have confirmation from the court of what we believe was the result.

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Posted By: Wesley

Kudos to Dan and Adam for standing up to PSA.

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Posted By: MW

Adam & Dan,

Excellent work, gentlemen. May the court's decision be fair and just and take full consideration of the evidence presented.

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Posted By: Jason

I remember reading about this case, and I really had to feel for you. I hope it works out. Nothing worse then getting stiffed or something bad to take the enjoyment out of the hobby a person loves.

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Posted By: Brad Freeman

I think that lawyers are vastly underrated! Good job, Adam.

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Posted By: dan mckee

Thanks to all for the kind words and encouragement, unfortunately, after hiring a lawyer and flying coast to coast and the many hobby news ads collecting other poor soles that have had cards lost by PSA, if I win, I am still out $2k but if I lose, I will be out $7500. Hopefully, justice will be served and fellow collectors will learn from my mishap. Vintage cards should go to SGC or GAI and do the expensive ones in person, I do not think either company has any accountability process in place for their receivers. Dan.

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Posted By: Tim Mayer

well I admit, I am glued to the story....I am looking for this story first...everytime I log in...
to make a long story short I was taken to arbitration late last year over a non compete employee agreement, besides the cost ( more than my car) I lost sleep everyday for a year,,,felt the world was unfair and crashed in,,,it eventually ended for me, but it seemed like forever,,,and I know my hair will never grow back...I know my new wife is the best...and loves me for me,,,

I learned lifes not fair, and had to live my life knowing it was out of control, and stuff is only stuff,,,

I am thinking good thoughts for you, and hope you get treated fairly...I have a feeling you will,,,

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Posted By: Julie Vognar

Julie, Gary, Rob L, Darren, Dan, Leon, Joe P., Jim Manos, Adam, Wesley, Michael Wentz, Jason, Brad and Tim--not to mention others--rooting for the two of you--

how can you lose?

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Posted By: Tom

Dan, I was under the impression that this case was settled a few months ago when you placed the article on this web site. I still believe the approach is a class action lawsuit against PSA/Collector Universe. There is no doubt in my mind between early June 2003 or maybe sooner that PSA was indeed swamping customer cards that was real and PSA offering money for exchange. Peter Ma made the statement to me that I was the only person that did not accept the money that PSA offered to me. I still say that no company would get that upset and do the things that PSA did unless they are hiding something. I have wrote several article on its site about my 1915 M101-5 Jim Thorpe card. It does not matter if my card was real or counterfeit PSA certified my card as true and authentic and that is all that matters to me. I received nothing not even the same card back. I had to go to the local sheriff office and get then involved. PSA/Collector Universe is bad news for the hobby "trust me". If any other collectors have had an experieence with PSA like Dan and myself please email me at fastpitcher105@aol.com

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Posted By: Tom

Change of email address from: fastpitcher105@aol.com

TO: fastpitcher104@aol.com

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Posted By: dan mckee

Hi Tom, I am sorry and you are correct. I did win my small claims against PSA in April. BUT.... the very kind Joe Orlando decided to appeal which caused me to fly all the way to CA again from MD and forced me to hire a lawyer. Unfortunately, for some reason, these costs are not permitted to be added to the claim so by appealing, PSA cost me the extra $$$. I love the justice system, I am an innocent victom, I do everything by the book, and even if I win, I lose $2K. Lovely. Dan.

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Posted By: gdporter

Can someone refer me to the prior link on this story? I am interested in learning the nature of the disputes.

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Posted By: dan mckee

Here you go:




http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=153652&messageid=1054127903 (from May '03)






http://www.network54.com/Forum/message?forumid=153652&messageid=1087745779 (from June '04)

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Posted By: steve k

In my line of business, I have dealt with attorneys and lawsuits a number of times. Been both the plaintiff and the defendant. The suits have usually involved more money than this case with Dan. Every case has always wound up being settled out of court.

PSA of course is also running up their attorney fees. It's amazing to me that with all the negative publicity towards PSA, and for the "small" amount of money involved considering the legal fees, that PSA hasn't simply settled this case with Dan. They must have some ulterior motivation for not settling. Possibly to dissuade others from filing similar suits? In my opinion that is a bad idea for PSA if for no other reason than being bad business. Rather than settle with Dan and using this as an opportunity to make improvements to prevent further negative occurances, seems to me that PSA just wants to "bully" Dan through the legal system by running up his legal fees. The legal fees could/will windup being more than the card was worth. I've seen other companies do things like this before and it usually backfires on them. Even if PSA wins this case - they overall still lose.

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Posted By: Reid Bruce

Somebody at PSA is reading this thread and knows that if they settle, it will set a precedent. If they fight the case, it will discourage others from pursuing the matter for fear of running up large bills. In the legal world, this is called the "Walmart plan." Walmart never settles with anybody and very few lawyers are willing to take cases because of this fact. Therefore, alot of litigation never gets off of the ground.

Just my two cents.

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Posted By: Julie

cards in one of their unattractive tombs will get you more money than putting your cards in someone else's somewhat less unattractive tombs. So now i hear that breaking someone with court costs and thereby discouraging others from bringing similar suits is more important to them than
good public relations. That's just swell. Put it with all the other--HORROR stories! I've permanently had it with them! Thanks for all the input.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

they refused to talk. One of the closing arguments made by their attorney was that if Dan was allowed to recover, it would set a precedent for anyone to claim that PSA had lost a rare card sent to it for grading (an asinine view, since anyone CAN make such a claim right now; the issue is whether they can back it up).

IMHO the sole reason for appealing was to cost Dan money by forcing a new trial, in the hope that he'd drop it.

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I strongly recommend the small claims system for any fights of $5,000 or less. You can handle the case yourself at the small claims level and hire an attorney to retry the case at the superior court level if you win and the defendant appeals. It isn't perfect, but Dan will recover a lot of the loss he'd otherwise have taken.

I was less than impressed with the people at the top of PSA. We offered to settle the case for an equivalent sum in grading services, which would have cost them next to nothing. They refused and did not even make a counteroffer. Orlando "Fuhrmanned" himself badly by refusing to acknowledge that human error was a possibility in this case. He also testified that he had no knowledge of any significant mistakes made by PSA during his time there, and said he did not recall the fake Ruth rookie that they slabbed and had to buy back (he did look like he turned about six shades of pale when I asked him about it, though ). I did not buy it and I don't think the judge did, either. I felt that the testimony of PSA'S receiver (who could not recall anything about Dan's box other than an inaccurate partial description of it, and could not testify about how she handled it, yet was adamant that it did not have the Magie card in it) was so coached that it lacked credibility with the court.

Anyone who has had problems with PSA that they can document with materials that have PSA admitting fault or paying money for screwing up, please LMK. I want to develop a dossier on the company so that if I run up against them again and Orlando testifies again about how PSA does not make mistakes, I can hit them on cross with a pile of evidence of their errors.

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Posted By: steve k

<<< We offered to settle the case for an equivalent sum in grading services, which would have cost them next to nothing. >>>

That was an extremely fair offer. This is what an honest, ethical attorney will do - make an offer which is in the best interest of his client, that the opposing side has a very reasonable chance of accepting. It is absolutely astonishing that PSA didn't take this - their behavior borders on idiocy!

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Posted By: Andy Baran

I was the one who bought the PSA Graded Fake Ruth Rookie, and PSA did in fact buy it back. This happened before Joe Orlando was the president. Steve Rocchi was president at the time.

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Posted By: Lee Behrens

Why would you even settle for equivalency in grading service from a company you obviously want nothing to do with? Help me to understand the reasoning in this.

Other than that GREAT job!!!!!!!!!!

I won't be able to help you with any eveidence because I have not and will not ever submit to PSA.

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Posted By: BcD

now you should move your house out here! It will instantly go from $200k in value to around $780k and you won't have to shovel snow~

I'll bet Julie's house is worth that much!

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Posted By: warshawlaw

I never said PSA was evil or malicious or that their service was worthless or so untrustworthy as to make shipping cards to them the equivalent of tossing them into the toilet; just that they messed up on this case and obstinately refused to step up like men and handle it. They do receive 100,000's of submittals a year and rarely lose the cards. The idea was to get $4800 from PSA in a manner that might be more palatable to the powers that be over there and cut the risk of a trial. If they'd gone for the deal, I'm sure Dan would have either sold off the grading rights or used them to grade inventory for sale.

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Posted By: Tom

I still say the best approach is a class action law suit. I have one of the best lawyer in the courty that will take this case if we can turn this around. This lawyer has looked at the evidence that I presented and there is no doubt that PSA did indeed swapped the card. I belive we can talk about this story until we are blue in the face, but we are not getting anywhere. Dan, with your evidence and mine and some other people I know we can force PSA hand. I just wish all the other people that has been wrongly done by PSA would just come forward and tell there story backed up with there evidence. We indeed then would have a major case!

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Posted By: dan mckee

You won't force their hand. Adam gave them an easy out and they didn't take it. They think they are above the law.

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

Guys, with all respect, it was a 5K case. I don't think PSA cared one way or another considering the small amount of exposure they had. The reason they didn't settle it was simply because of their desire to not set a precedent every time someone claims to have had a card lost during the process. Nevertheless, for a multi-million dollar company to actually bother litigating something like this...sounds small time to me.

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Posted By: Dan Mckee

I agree, it was peanuts to them, more the reason they should have just paid me. They knew my 35 year reputation in the business, plus I had Kevin Struss, Doug Allen, and Bill Mastro talk to Joe for me. The exposure they get from this case will be a little more than you might think. It may only be within the pre-war community but it will be all through it. Adam, has the press release been posted to the CU boards yet?

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Posted By: Jeff Lichtman

No, Dan, by exposure I mean how much money that they stood to lose from this lawsuit -- peanuts, I agree. I suppose that they just felt that it was worth it to fight it to discourage other people from going after them for similar negligence (or worse). Nevertheless, thievery or negligence is the cost of doing business when you are PSA, I suppose, and I'm honestly shocked that they just didn't accept your incredibly reasonable offer. Really does smack of small-time.