FireAid Class Action Ended by Anti-SLAPP Motion

John B. Quinn (0:03)

This is John Quinn, and this is Law, Disrupted. And today, I'm speaking with my partner, Robert Schwartz, goes by Bobby. He's known to the world as Bobby Schwartz. And you know, on Law, Disrupted, we talk about cases big and small. This one is maybe on the smaller side, but I think there's some important lessons here. One lesson might be, you know, the adage and illustration of the adage, that no good deed goes unpunished.

It concerns very wealthy people who tried to do a good deed, tried to raise some money for fire victims in Los Angeles. I think the world knows there were two major fires. Was it last year, Bobby? Or two years ago?

Robert M. Schwartz (0:46)

Yes. Last year. January 2025

John B. Quinn (0:49)

Yeah, in Los Angeles, both in Pasadena and on the West side, Pacific Palisades in Malibu. And it kind of illustrates maybe the American legal system. Maybe not at its best.

Anyone can bring a claim in our country, if you have the filing fee and subject to rules regarding bringing totally frivolous cases, which may be sanctionable. Anybody can bring a claim. And here claims were brought regarding efforts to raise money to compensate and support fire victims. Well, let's just jump into it, Bobby. Set the stage for us. What was the good deed here that folks were trying to do?

Robert M. Schwartz (1:34)

Good deed was to raise money for victims of those fires. That's pretty simple good deed. And it worked. If you recall, the fires, as we said, were in January 2025

And while they were still burning, seriously, they were still burning, our client, Steve Ballmer.

John B. Quinn (1:52)

Steve Ballmer, who owns the NBA basketball team here in town, the Clippers, longtime clients of our firm.

Robert M. Schwartz (2:02)

Yes. And his wife said, we need to do something. And they started networking or working within their network and reached out to people. And they said, you know, we could hold benefit concerts at the home of the Clippers, the Intuit Dome and the former home of the Lakers, the Fabulous Forum, and raise a lot of money and give it to fire victims.

John B. Quinn (2:23)

Let's do that.

Robert M. Schwartz (2:23)

And let's go beyond that. Let's not only make our facilities available and work with people to sponsor the concerts, let's put our own money up and agree or pledge to match dollar for dollar every contribution up to the first 50 million dollars.

John B. Quinn (2:40)

So they said they agreed to match up to 50 million dollars for this fund for fire victims.

Robert M. Schwartz (2:47)

They did. And then they went out and contacted people they know like Irving Azoff, one of the most successful music business entrepreneurs and executives in the history of the music business and with contacts with all of the leading acts and Rick Caruso and they formed a board, formed an organization and very quickly put on some benefit concerts at the Forum and the Intuit Dome. And with their contributions, their being the Ballmers, raised over 100 million dollars for fire relief, net of the cost of putting on the concerts.

John B. Quinn (3:24)

Amazing. And how quickly were they able to do this from the time they launched the project?

Robert M. Schwartz (3:29)

Under two months.

John B. Quinn (3:30)

That's amazing. What could possibly go wrong? Such an altruistic campaign effort.

Robert M. Schwartz (3:37)

You would think nothing.

Because the Ballmers don't know a lot of fire victims. Nobody, I'm being a little facetious there. They turned to the California Family Foundation, I believe the Annenberg Foundation and other well-recognized blue chip charities and foundations in the area and said, help us identify worthy non-profit organizations that we can give this money to, who can then in turn give it directly to the fire victims. Because we can't do that ourselves, but they can. And those people, those organizations got involved and started giving grants and direct aid through the other organizations to the fire victims.

John B. Quinn (4:21)

I'm still having a hard time seeing how this ends up in living. Well, but what happens?

Robert M. Schwartz (4:27)

What happened is stories started appearing in the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere that the money or some of the money wasn't going to fire victims. And maybe some fire victims were telling the LA Times, I'm not getting any money. I don't know what this is about. And the urban lore was, gee, the money really didn't go to fire victims. When you were donating or buying a ticket for fire victims, your money actually went to some unrelated charity, healed the bay, saved the dolphins, whatever it was, but it wasn't fire relief victims. And this is one big scam. And then the politicians piled on, maybe of one flavor of the partisan divide and started attacking this and drawing more publicity to it.