Plaintiff Professor's Losing Libel Lawsuit May Lead to His Former Lawyers Foreclosing on His Home

(Part of the fees also stemmed from defending against Ohio State's investigating his alleged research misconduct.)

Judge Jeffrey M. Brown's opinion in James E. Arnold & Associates, LPA v. Croce (Ohio Ct. Com. Pl. Franklin County, July 12), notes that the professor had given his then-lawyers a promissory note, secured by the house. Retraction Watch reports:

A law firm that holds a mortgage on the house of Carlo Croce, a cancer researcher at The Ohio State University, may foreclose on the property, a judge has ruled.

Croce hired James E. Arnold and Associates to represent him in a libel case against the New York Times and a defamation case against David Sanders, a professor of biological sciences at Purdue University who became something of a public nemesis for the Ohio scientist after pointing out problems in Croce's published work. Croce also needed representation for Ohio State's research misconduct investigation, and a suit attempting to stop the university from removing him as chair of the department of cancer biology and genetics.

Croce lost each case. Ohio State's investigation found problems with how he managed his lab that did not amount to research misconduct.

Arnold and Associates was the second firm Croce hired, after his original lawyers at Kegler Brown Hill & Ritter dropped his cases and sued him because he wasn't paying his bills. Last December, a judge ordered Croce to pay Kegler Brown nearly $1.1 million. To enforce the judgment, Ohio State has been garnishing his wages, and Kegler Brown has filed a motion for the court to allow Sotheby's to handle the sale of pieces from Croce's collection of Renaissance artwork, which the county sheriff seized….

See also this 2021 post on the Sixth Circuit opinion rejecting Croce's libel claim. Thanks to the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC) MediaLawDaily for the pointer.