"Enough of Lampson", or "Is there a lawyer in the house?"

[staindsox]

Frank, I completely agree. I'm getting tired of hearing people gripe about Lou, but who continue to buy things in which he handles the LOAs. We could even start a petition to send to auction houses that use Lou...that we will not bid on any lots that involve him whatsoever. When it hits them in the wallet, maybe they will listen to us.

[kingjammy24]

let me preface things by saying i'm not a lawyer. anything i say should not be construed as any sort of legal advice. that said, here is my personal opinion:

frank: hypothetically, you could sue for malpractice and the damages incurred as a result. many in this hobby echo the sentiment that "it's just an opinion". unfortunately, when you're getting paid for it, it's not longer "just an opinion". it's a professional duty that carries with it certain obligations including the requirement to perform due diligence. several professions are based around issuing opinions. doctors, lawyers, accountants, investment advisors all issue opinions and they can all be sued for malpractice. if any professional authenticator genuinely believes they're immune to legal prosecution simply because it's "just an opinion" then i suggest they seek out the thousands of doctors, lawyers and accountants who have been successfully sued for "just issuing an opinion".
essentially, you're suing for either nonfeasance, misfeasance, or malfeasance. ie: either he didn't do his duty at all, he did it poorly or inadequately, or he deliberately mislead others in the course of his duty (respectively). in my personal opinion, lampson is the poster child for misfeasance. he authenticates jerseys of styles that were never worn. he clearly fails to do his due diligence. some might also be of the opinion that his lack of due diligence is so egregious at times, that it seems to constitute fraud. that is, given his experience he ought to know that he needs to verify the uniform style, for example. when he clearly fails to do this due diligence, is it intentional? hypothetically, fraud is another charge someone could bring. in short, when lampson authenticates in a paid, professional capacity he has a legal obligation to execute his authentications to the best of his ability and to commonly accepted standards and principles. if he fails in this respect, then it's my personal opinion that a case for malpractice can be made. if it's shown that his failures have been intentional, then it may also be fraud.

"I don't think you could sue him for a specific jersey being incorrectly authenticated"

sure you could. it's happened before. successfully. see: GFC and their TBTC Ripken. GFC was brilliant enough to decide to show their sloppy authentication on national TV.

"Even if you purchased it, he doesn't give any guarantee for his work"

doctors, lawyers and investment advisors don't give guarantees either. however, there is the reasonable expectation that they have done their due diligence and fulfilled their duties and obligations according to accepted principles, to the best of their abilities, and to reasonable expectations. a doctor will never give someone a "guarantee" that their cancer will never return, for example. they'd simply say that, after considering all of the evidence, it's their professional opinion that it's unlikely to return. they have a professional and legal obligation to make their opinions as informed and as accurate as possible. if it was discovered that a doctor issued an opinion without doing any due diligence whatsoever, then it'd be a case for malpractice. many would argue lampson doesn't attempt to make his opinions as informed and accurate as possible. look at this jersey: http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/A...ction_ID=22278

the description reads "..it is safe to say that he wore this jersey for the majority of the home schedule given its great use". lou's loa on it says
"Surprisingly strong wear on this white Oakland A's jersey would suggest it was Big Mac's main home shirt during the strike-shortened 1994 season."

in 1994, the A's wore 2 color names on the back. lou didn't even look at any images of the A's in 1994 to verify the nob. (or did he?) as an professional, paid authenticator he failed to verify the nob which is a common and fundamental expectation in authenticating jerseys. lou knew it and he didn't do it. seems to scream "misfeasance" to me.

"Additionally, you personally aren't suffering any loss by him (i.e. that you could prove in court)."

a person accepts lou's opinion, they purchase a jersey based on his opinion as a "professional authenticator", the jersey turns out to be bogus. they're out thousands of dollars. pretty easy to prove those losses in court. "i paid $6k for a jersey that lou said was a ripken gamer. it turns out the orioles never even wore this style. the jersey is now worth $100. i'm out $5900". saying that the person didn't have to accept his opinion is rubbish. he was paid for it so there was the natural expectation that people would accept it. do auction houses pay lampson with the intent and expectation that people won't accept his opinions? rubbish. they pay lampson because they hope people will accept his opinion. when a doctor fails to do his due diligence, he can't turn to the patient and say "noone told you to listen to me. you should've done your own homework".

"I also wouldn't think you could sue someone to stop doing their job."

you wouldn't sue lampson to "stop him from doing his job". you'd sue for malpractice and possibly fraud. realistically though, unless lampson is very wealthy, the weight of substantial litigation and the possible resulting penalties, fines, and restitution would naturally put a big damper on his authenticating.

"He is producing "Letters of Opinion" and therefore are you going to ask a court to force someone to stop giving their opinion?"

no. hypothetically, you'd go to court to sue him to a) collect damages which have resulted from any mis/mal/nonfeasance and/or fraud b) have him face the legal penalties resulting from judgements against him. whether lou wants to keep authenticating after all of that is up to him.

"Opinions can be wrong (as we see with him frequently) and that is why they are opinions."

it's not that simple. if you were right, there'd be no such thing as malpractice or even malpractice insurance. millions of doctors would rejoice. ever notice why the legal profession insists that non-lawyers preface their legal advice with the disclaimer that they're not a lawyer and their advice ("opinion") doesn't constitute legal advice? it's because people can incur substantial damages by following poor advice and they can, in turn, sue if such advice was given without fulfilling the necessary obligations. "it's just an opinion" doesn't fly when you're being paid for it.
if you don't want to be held liable, then sell the items strictly "as is" with no claims whatsoever as to what they are or are not. when you charge for your services and advertise yourself as a "foremost expert", then people will take your advice seriously. you have an obligation to perform certain duties in the execution of this advice. that's the reality in other professions and industries. if authenticators and auction houses are rarely sued, then i have to think it's because most hobbyists have actually fallen hook, line, and sinker for the rubbish line of "it's just an opinion". too bad that's not how the real world works. GFC found that out nicely on the People's Court.

chris: i agree with you but also, remember.. "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". at some point, noise becomes too loud to simply ignore.

rudy.

[Frank]

let me preface things by saying i'm not a lawyer. anything i say should not be construed as any sort of legal advice. that said, here is my personal opinion:

frank: hypothetically, you could sue for malpractice and the damages incurred as a result. many in this hobby echo the sentiment that "it's just an opinion". unfortunately, when you're getting paid for it, it's not longer "just an opinion". it's a professional duty that carries with it certain obligations including the requirement to perform due diligence. several professions are based around issuing opinions. doctors, lawyers, accountants, investment advisors all issue opinions and they can all be sued for malpractice. if any professional authenticator genuinely believes they're immune to legal prosecution simply because it's "just an opinion" then i suggest they seek out the thousands of doctors, lawyers and accountants who have been successfully sued for "just issuing an opinion".
essentially, you're suing for either nonfeasance, misfeasance, or malfeasance. ie: either he didn't do his duty at all, he did it poorly or inadequately, or he deliberately mislead others in the course of his duty (respectively). in my personal opinion, lampson is the poster child for misfeasance. he authenticates jerseys of styles that were never worn. he clearly fails to do his due diligence. some might also be of the opinion that his lack of due diligence is so egregious at times, that it seems to constitute fraud. that is, given his experience he ought to know that he needs to verify the uniform style, for example. when he clearly fails to do this due diligence, is it intentional? hypothetically, fraud is another charge someone could bring. in short, when lampson authenticates in a paid, professional capacity he has a legal obligation to execute his authentications to the best of his ability and to commonly accepted standards and principles. if he fails in this respect, then it's my personal opinion that a case for malpractice can be made. if it's shown that his failures have been intentional, then it may also be fraud.

"I don't think you could sue him for a specific jersey being incorrectly authenticated"

sure you could. it's happened before. successfully. see: GFC and their TBTC Ripken. GFC was brilliant enough to decide to show their sloppy authentication on national TV.

"Even if you purchased it, he doesn't give any guarantee for his work"

doctors, lawyers and investment advisors don't give guarantees either. however, there is the reasonable expectation that they have done their due diligence and fulfilled their duties and obligations according to accepted principles, to the best of their abilities, and to reasonable expectations. a doctor will never give someone a "guarantee" that their cancer will never return, for example. they'd simply say that, after considering all of the evidence, it's their professional opinion that it's unlikely to return. they have a professional and legal obligation to make their opinions as informed and as accurate as possible. if it was discovered that a doctor issued an opinion without doing any due diligence whatsoever, then it'd be a case for malpractice. many would argue lampson doesn't attempt to make his opinions as informed and accurate as possible. look at this jersey: http://www.americanmemorabilia.com/A...ction_ID=22278

the description reads "..it is safe to say that he wore this jersey for the majority of the home schedule given its great use". lou's loa on it says
"Surprisingly strong wear on this white Oakland A's jersey would suggest it was Big Mac's main home shirt during the strike-shortened 1994 season."

in 1994, the A's wore 2 color names on the back. lou didn't even look at any images of the A's in 1994 to verify the nob. (or did he?) as an professional, paid authenticator he failed to verify the nob which is a common and fundamental expectation in authenticating jerseys. lou knew it and he didn't do it. seems to scream "misfeasance" to me.

"Additionally, you personally aren't suffering any loss by him (i.e. that you could prove in court)."

a person accepts lou's opinion, they purchase a jersey based on his opinion as a "professional authenticator", the jersey turns out to be bogus. they're out thousands of dollars. pretty easy to prove those losses in court. "i paid $6k for a jersey that lou said was a ripken gamer. it turns out the orioles never even wore this style. the jersey is now worth $100. i'm out $5900". saying that the person didn't have to accept his opinion is rubbish. he was paid for it so there was the natural expectation that people would accept it. do auction houses pay lampson with the intent and expectation that people won't accept his opinions? rubbish. they pay lampson because they hope people will accept his opinion. when a doctor fails to do his due diligence, he can't turn to the patient and say "noone told you to listen to me. you should've done your own homework".

"I also wouldn't think you could sue someone to stop doing their job."

you wouldn't sue lampson to "stop him from doing his job". you'd sue for malpractice and possibly fraud. realistically though, unless lampson is very wealthy, the weight of substantial litigation and the possible resulting penalties, fines, and restitution would naturally put a big damper on his authenticating.

"He is producing "Letters of Opinion" and therefore are you going to ask a court to force someone to stop giving their opinion?"

no. hypothetically, you'd go to court to sue him to a) collect damages which have resulted from any mis/mal/nonfeasance and/or fraud b) have him face the legal penalties resulting from judgements against him. whether lou wants to keep authenticating after all of that is up to him.

"Opinions can be wrong (as we see with him frequently) and that is why they are opinions."

it's not that simple. if you were right, there'd be no such thing as malpractice or even malpractice insurance. millions of doctors would rejoice. ever notice why the legal profession insists that non-lawyers preface their legal advice with the disclaimer that they're not a lawyer and their advice ("opinion") doesn't constitute legal advice? it's because people can incur substantial damages by following poor advice and they can, in turn, sue if such advice was given without fulfilling the necessary obligations. "it's just an opinion" doesn't fly when you're being paid for it.
if you don't want to be held liable, then sell the items strictly "as is" with no claims whatsoever as to what they are or are not. when you charge for your services and advertise yourself as a "foremost expert", then people will take your advice seriously. you have an obligation to perform certain duties in the execution of this advice. that's the reality in other professions and industries. if authenticators and auction houses are rarely sued, then i have to think it's because most hobbyists have actually fallen hook, line, and sinker for the rubbish line of "it's just an opinion". too bad that's not how the real world works. GFC found that out nicely on the People's Court.

chris: i agree with you but also, remember.. "the squeaky wheel gets the grease". at some point, noise becomes too loud to simply ignore.

rudy.

Rudy,
You are slightly wrong here. You have to have privity of contract to sue someone. That actually means two things in the circumstances we are discussing.

1) You could not sue the authenticator or the auction house, unless you directly purchased the item.

2) You could not sue the authenticator directly if you purchased the item.

Basically, if you didn’t purchase the item, you can’t do anything. However, if you did purchase the item, you could sue the auction house, who could sue the authenticator. The exceptions here are if the authenticator sold the item or if you directly paid the authenticator to authenticate the item. When you give your examples of a doctor or lawyer, you are directly hiring the professional to do the work you are contracting them to do. By purchasing an item in an auction house, you do not have a contract with the authenticator. So, in your example, the person is out $5,900 and can sue the auction house but not the authenticator. The auction house could sue the authenticator (or try to bring him into court under a cross-claim) but the person couldn’t sue directly. Also, with your example with GFC, they were the authenticator and the auction house, so the person who bought the item did have a contract with the authenticator.

So, unless you purchase the item, you have no recourse, and if you are the unfortunate person to buy an item with a Lou Letter, you can sue the auction house, not the authenticator.

That all being said and in regards to the original post, you could sue the person selling the jersey and have to show damages to be able to take it to court.

Keep in mind that any auction house that gets sued could immediately offer you a refund and the case would be quickly dismissed because you have mitigated your damages (e.g. you couldn't keep the case going just to make an example of an auction house). It would be up to the auction house if they wanted to sue the authenticator for the money or just return the item to the consignor.

Again, I am not a lawyer and anything I say should not be construed as any sort of legal advice.

Frank

[bigtime59]

While I admit I have "won" items with Lampson! LOAs! I also knew what those items REALLY were, regardless of what Lou! had to say about them. When "Dunder-Mifflin" Lou "authenticates" Bluefield Orioles common or coaches jerseys as Baltimore Orioles common or coaches jerseys, I just laugh, and hold to my (generally cheap) minor league bidding standards. When he signs off on high-dollar fakes, however, it is then our duty

NOT!
TO!
EFFIN'!
BID!

The more that happens, the more money the auction houses don't realize, and the more likely we'll be talking about some OTHER knuckleheads "LOAs" next year.

Mark
bigtime39@aol.com

[kingjammy24]

hi frank,

"Basically, if you didn’t purchase the item, you can’t do anything."

well..yes. of course. if i hadn't purchased the item, then i wouldn't really care if lampson screwed it up nor would there be any damages for me to collect. my post assumed that the plaintiff would be the buyer.

"However, if you did purchase the item, you could sue the auction house, who could sue the authenticator. The exceptions here are if the authenticator sold the item or if you directly paid the authenticator to authenticate the item."

completely agreed.

"So, unless you purchase the item, you have no recourse"

of course. the plaintiff must be the buyer. can't imagine anyone wanting to sue for an item they didn't even purchase.

"Keep in mind that any auction house that gets sued could immediately offer you a refund and the case would be quickly dismissed because you have mitigated your damages (e.g. you couldn't keep the case going just to make an example of an auction house). It would be up to the auction house if they wanted to sue the authenticator for the money or just return the item to the consignor."

again, completely agreed. at a minimum, if it were done publically, the press would be damaging. perhaps the auction house might also have to pay for your legal fees? at any rate, i think the scenario you describe here is the likeliest. if a person bought a bad jersey for $5k and sued, the auction house, if they were smart, would just give them back their full payment, and return the bad jersey to the consigner. no need to even go after the authenticator because nobody is out any money. of course, this wouldn't work if the auction house wasn't really a true consignment house and actually bought the items in their auction. shocking i know. in this case, if they bought the items outright, then they'd have to go after the authenticator to recoup the money they just refunded to the buyer. either that or sue the original seller? or both!

if my post implied suing lampson directly, then it was not my intent. the only way would be if the buyer had directly hired the authenticator. since the authenticator is hired by auction house, it's the auction that would be sued. realistically, there are additional points to consider here: 1) regardless of how much an auction house likes lou, they aren't going to incur litigation and its consequences for him. if they end up incurring any losses because of him, i think its very likely they'd try to recoup them from him. 2) if an auction house is repeatedly sued solely because of lampson's authentications, then how quickly do you think they'll stop using him?

the intent of my original post was simply to shed some light on the misconception that you can't be sued for "issuing an opinion" as well as provide some details on what lampson could, theoretically, be sued for. (it wasn't so much to give a step-by-step on how, when, why, and where).

what i think might be interesting is how such legal action would pan out given the auction houses' disclaimers about "all sales final. no returns. no guarantees about authenticity". none of it seemed to work in gfc's case but who knows. what's funny is that if you read the terms and conditions of some auction houses, the fine print, which tries to absolve them of as much as possible, almost seems to read as if they're selling the items as-is. then they go out and hire authenticators and make very specific, bold claims about the items.

rudy.

[Frank]

Rudy,

Don't get me wrong, I certainly wasn't trying to go on the offensive with you. We're going for the same thing thing.

I just wanted things to be clear for any members reading this. I mistakenly took your post to mean anybody could sue an authenticator over a bad item. I do apologize.

While suing auction houses is a option, I think a better idea is to spread the truth about Lou (and every bad authenticator for that matter) and also not spend money on items authenticated by them. Suing auction houses over and over would take considerable time and money and, though suing should be done, education and bad publicity I think would be a quicker route to follow.

I also think every member should call (not just email) and express their concern directly to each auction house. That will get their attention.

[mr.miracle]

Rudy,

Don't get me wrong, I certainly wasn't trying to go on the offensive with you. We're going for the same thing thing.

I just wanted things to be clear for any members reading this. I mistakenly took your post to mean anybody could sue an authenticator over a bad item. I do apologize.

While suing auction houses is a option, I think a better idea is to spread the truth about Lou (and every bad authenticator for that matter) and also not spend money on items authenticated by them. Suing auction houses over and over would take considerable time and money and, though suing should be done, education and bad publicity I think would be a quicker route to follow.

I also think every member should call (not just email) and express their concern directly to each auction house. That will get their attention.

The question is, how much if anything is actually being accomplished. Although it would seem especially lately, that Lou has been on a tear writing bad LOA's, we have been complaining on this forum about his worthless LOA's for well over a year and what if anything has come of it? While we have no idea if any of the auction houses that use him are about to kick him to the curb, it would appear based upon members contacting various auction houses that in some cases they could care less. In the past year, dozens of items have been pointed out on this forum that have ranged from questionable to major screwups by Lampson. Other than the continuous complaint fest on here, what has it accomplished? Lampson is still employed by all the same auctions and is still writing LOA's faster than the federal government prints money.

We are also assuming that everyone who collects game used items and buys from the auction houses is a member here. Obviously, if everybody who reads this forum and contributes to it were the only buyers in the auctions, Lampson would be out of a job by now. At some point, there would be some type of correlation between Lampson authenticated items not selling vs. other non Lampson items that do sell through the auctions. Of course, once again we are not privy to those numbers if in fact anyone has noticed that anything like this is taking place at all anyway.

Unless we can reach the entire collecting universe, simply spreading the word about Lampson via the forum is quite honestly not getting the job done as evidenced by his continued employment.

I personally would like to see him work the fry station at McDonald's for a couple of months. If he is knowledgable about bagels, then by god he sure should be able to make a mean order of fries.

[ripkengamers]

Stay tuned Forum Fans.................there is something brewing which will be made public...........I'll let everyone know when I get more details.