Kinkade Loses 'Eavesdropping' Suit Against Attorneys who Successfully Sued Artist and His Company for Fraud.

SOUTHFIELD, Mich., June 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Oakland County Circuit Court Judge Rudy J. Nichols, yesterday, dismissed a lawsuit filed by the Thomas Kinkade Co., alleging that Michigan attorney Joseph Ejbeh and others had engaged in illegal eavesdropping.

The suit alleged that Ejbeh secretly transmitted testimony via the Internet in an arbitration hearing to a third party. Ejbeh's opposing counsel acknowledged at that hearing that he had known for months that testimony was being transmitted in real time via the Internet and did not object.

However, after attorneys for the Kinkade team realized that one of the people on the other end of the live transcription feed was a witness in a fraud case they had lost earlier in the year and a witness in the current arbitration, Kinkade's counsel objected and filed suit.

Judge Nichols ruled that Michigan's eavesdropping statute had not been violated. In explaining the ruling, Ejbeh's attorney, Steven Wolock of Maddin, Hauser, Wartell, Roth & Heller, P.C., said, "In order for there to be eavesdropping violation in Michigan, the alleged ...