Delayed again

 

Dispute over filing statement keeps Morgan Carey's defamation lawsuit against Mariah Carey on hold

By David Baker

Fifteen months after Morgan Carey’s lawsuit against Mariah Carey was filed, the case still is at a point it would normally have been at this time last year.  Delayed first by Mariah’s unsuccessful attempt to get it all thrown out, and then by the filing of an amended complaint, its’s now held up by a dispute over what is usually a routine statement called a verification.

New York state legal rules require that a complaint - the document that starts a lawsuit - includes a “verification”, a single paragraph in which the person filing the lawsuit states under oath that he or she has read the document, and that the allegations in it are true to his or her knowledge. 

It’s a routine part of a complaint. In some cases, the attorney, rather than the plaintiff, can sign the verification, such as when the client does not live in the county when the attorney has his or her office.

Morgan Carey currently resides in Hawaii, so the exception allowing his attorney, Richard A. Altman, to file the verification would apply.

The problem is that the form Altman filed with the complaint  back in March 2021 is worded for a plaintiff, not an attorney; In it, Altman states that the allegations in it are “.. true to [his] own knowledge.” Which, as Mariah Carey’s lawyers pointed out, could not be true unless Altman was a witness to events involving Morgan Carey that Mariah Carey claims occurred more than 40 years ago.

State rules also say that a response to a verified filing must also be verified. But in their long delayed answer, Mariah Carey’s attorneys claim that because the complaint was not properly verified, they do not have to verify their response.

Altman, Morgan Carey’s attorney, responded by saying he considers the answer to be invalid. Pointing out that Mariah Carey’s attorneys waited eight months to object to the allegedly defective complaint, he says his client will ask the court for a default judgment.

The mystery is why Altman didn’t simply have Morgan Carey sign a verification before a notary in Hawaii and send it to Altman, as he did with an affidavit Morgan Carey provided last year.

Not doing that has allowed Mariah Carey’s attorneys to add yet another delay to the case, as the dispute will have to be settled by the judge.

But causing delays - and doing everything possible to run up a plaintiffs costs - is what some wealthy defendants do.

Particularly ones who know that eventually they will probably lose.

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