Serial Food Label Attorney Gets Sanctioned for Frivolous Filings

An attorney who frequently represents plaintiffs in fraud lawsuits over food labels and consumer goods was sanctioned by a federal court Wednesday for acting in bad faith throughout litigation over labels on Big Lots Inc.'s’ Fresh Finds coffee.

Spencer Sheehan of Sheehan & Associates PC was ordered to pay attorneys fees’ to Big Lots’ representation after the US District Court for the Middle District of Florida said Sheehan proceeded in bad faith throughout the case.

“Sheehan has undeniably acted in bad faith throughout this case—in addition to perpetrating a fraud on this Court,” Judge Gregory A. Presnell said.

Sheehan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Presnell noted that Sheehan had filed a nearly identical case in a New York federal court that had already been dismissed. The plaintiff argued she couldn’t have been party to the New York lawsuit so her case wasn’t frivolous. But the judge said that “dubious argument underscores the frivolity Sheehan and his enablers inflict upon the judiciary and his defendants.”

Sheehan, well-known in consumer fraud circles, has filed hundreds of lawsuits related to product labeling and deceptive advertising. He has faced warnings of sanctions from multiple other judges.

Presnell rejected the plaintiff’s argument that Sheehan wasn’t an attorney of record on the case and didn’t file a motion for pro hac vice admission.

Sheehan’s name was on the complaint and other filings and he also regularly communicated with his client and opposing counsel, Presnell said. The judge noted that Sheehan’s “flagrant disregard for Local Rules is sufficient grounds for sanctions in its own right.”

Presnell also said that the court had looked through its database to see if Sheehan’s failure to submit pro hac vice motions was “symptomatic of a more widespread strategy. The survey found Sheehan had appeared in 29 cases in the Middle District of Florida, but only filed the admission motions in two out of 24 cases where he’d been explicitly directed to do so.

That the case was dismissed might be a deterrent to some attorneys, Presnell said, but the plaintiff’s counsel had shown “in this very case, it will not serve as a sufficient deterrent to prevent them from re-filing this suit” in one of the “46 other states from which they have yet to be dismissed.”

The Wright Law Office PA also represented the plaintiff.

Big Lots was represented by Davis Wright Tremaine LLP.

The case is Durant v. Big Lots Inc., M.D. Fla., No. 5:23-cv-00561, 7/3/24.