CAIR May Be Liable For Bad Acts Of Phony Lawyer

A decision of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit

This appeal arises out of the bad acts of Morris Days (a/k/a Jamil Days), who held himself out to the public as a civil rights attorney working for a regional chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Action Network (“CAIR” or “CAIR National”), when he was not, in fact, a lawyer. The Maryland/Virginia regional CAIR chapter had hired Days to serve as its civil rights manager, and eventually Days also took up the role of resident attorney. Days took money from CAIR clients in exchange for the promise of legal services, but performed none. Plaintiff-Appellants in this consolidated action are individual CAIR clients who were negatively impacted by Days’s conduct. Their lawsuits allege, inter alia, that CAIR is responsible for the bad acts of Days because Days was CAIR’s agent.

The District Court disagreed and granted summary judgment to CAIR National. This Court has jurisdiction to review the final decision of the District Court under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. For the reasons set forth below, we reverse the District Court’s grant of summary judgment, and remand for further proceedings.

The story

Days was initially hired to perform non-legal advocacy for clients who alleged that they faced religious discrimination; this work included making phone calls, writing letters, and referring clients to attorneys when appropriate. It did not require Days to hold a law degree or a license to practice law. Yet, as time passed, Days started to misrepresent to CAIR, to the public, and to his CAIR-VA clients, that he was an attorney and was licensed to practice law. Days then began requesting and accepting fees for the legal services he claimed to be performing – despite CAIR-VA’s policy not to take money from its civil rights clients.

He was terminated for violating this policy

 It was only after Days was fired that CAIR started to inquire regarding his status as an attorney. After discovering that Days was not a lawyer, CAIR took possession of CAIR-VA’s civil rights case files, as CAIR-VA no longer had anyone that could handle the matters. CAIR had its own personnel review the files. Once CAIR National’s staff had  reviewed all of the files, Iqbal then informed the individuals with open cases that Days was no longer with CAIR-VA, and recommended attorneys with whom those individuals could consult regarding their cases.

The court found sufficient evidence to establish potential liability for the bad actor’s acts

CAIR National’s handling of Days’s client files after the exposure of his fraud is evidence that a reasonable jury could rely on in concluding that CAIR had control over Days. CAIR took possession of the CAIR-VA client files, and had its own personnel review those files without first contacting the clients for permission to do so – conduct that would have constituted a breach of ethical duties unless CAIR National previously had the power to control Days’s conduct with respect to those cases. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Plaintiffs, and drawing all inferences in their favor, it would be reasonable to infer based on these facts, taken together, that CAIR National had the ability to control Days, and in fact exerted that control…

…we find that genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether or not Morris Days was the agent of CAIR National. We reverse the judgment of the District Court and remand for further proceedings.

(Mike Frisch)