It's bad enough when the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals turns down a lawyer's appeal in a per curiam opinion. But it's even worse when the court describes a lawyer's conduct with an arcane word that might require a trip to the dictionary for full explanation.
Just ask Cletus Erenster, a Houston civil rights lawyer and partner in Washington & Erenster, whose appeal associated with long-running litigation against Dillard Department Stores Inc. was dismissed after the 5th Circuit found that the history of the case reflected "extreme pettifoggery by and on behalf of" appellant Erenster and others. A pettifogger, according to Webster's New World Dictionary, is "a lawyer who handles petty cases ... ."
"I feel hurt by that. And I don't agree with it, because civil rights work is important," Erenster says. Erenster says he has filed numerous suits against Dillard's alleging the store racially profiled minority customers.
He allegedly set up a Web site to solicit clients against Dillard's that infringed on the department store's trademark, according to Dillard's briefs in Evanston Insurance Co. v. Dillard Department Stores Inc., a case in which the 5th Circuit lists Erenster as an interested party-appellant. [See the court's opinion.]