Pattakos Law Firm argues in Ninth District Court of Appeals over class-action certification of consumer fraud case against KNR law firm

Earlier this week, Attorney Peter Pattakos presented oral argument to the Ninth District Court of Appeals in our class-action fraud case against the KNR law firm and certain of its affiliated doctors and chiropractors on behalf of tens of thousands of the firm’s former clients.
While the Ninth District has already affirmed class-action status for the tens of thousands of KNR clients who were charged a fraudulent “investigation fee” that the trial judge aptly described as “an ambulance-chasing fee,“ another key issue remains to be resolved by the court of appeals in this case: That is, whether the thousands of KNR clients who were defrauded by the firm into being overcharged for fraudulent medical care — including medically contraindicated trigger-point injections (“TPIs”) by former doctor Sam Ghoubrial, who would fly around Ohio in a private plane (incredibly, called “TPI airways”) that he co-owned with KNR name-partner Rob Nestico, to “treat” the firm’s clients who were herded en masse for their injections (which Ghoubrial, according to testimony we received from his own employees in this case, would callously refer to as “afro-puncture” and “n-gg-r-point injections,” referring to the large percentage of black clients who fell victim to these practices) by chiropractors who were in on the scheme (at his deposition, Ghoubrial testified that it was OK for him to use these terms because he was of Egyptian ancestry, and therefore was “African American”)– may proceed as a class under Ohio Civil Procedure Rule 23 in recovering these overcharges from the firm and the former doctor.

Also at issue in this appeal is whether a deposition transcript from the divorce proceedings between Ghoubrial and his ex-wife — which is believed to contain direct testimony confirming that Ghoubrial, after collecting the overcharges from the clients’ settlements, would pay cash kickbacks to Nestico and the referring chiropractors, which would allow the lawyers, doctor, and chiropractors to further conceal the fraudulent nature of their self-dealing relationships with one another, as well as the overcharges, and would also allow KNR to collect additional fees in excess of what the ethical rules governing lawyers permit — should have been considered by the trial court as evidence warranting class-wide disgorgement by Ghoubrial and the law firm of the fees they overcharged these clients.

A video of this week’s oral argument is available at the Ninth District’s YouTube page here. Attorney Pattakos’s argument begins at the 10:43 mark of the video. Copies of the briefs our firm has filed in this appeal are available here, here, and here. For more information about this case, Williams et al. v. Kisling, Nestico, and Redick et al., Summit County Court of Common Pleas No. CV-2016-09-3928 see the links posted above and here, and stay tuned to this page for further updates.