He has never used our service. He reviewed it anyway. He doesn’t even know our name.

The record

Seven documents. Four of them are his.

1. Sept 21, 2023

   A PIABA member asks the list for a numbers expert.

   On the Public Investors Advocate Bar Association’s private list-serve, an attorney needs transaction reports built from account statements, fast. Steve Buchwalter, a member for decades, answers:

   “I can’t recommend Tom Benson highly enough. If the statements are downloaded (as opposed to scanned), he can usually turn it around in a couple of days, usually for $1,500 or less. … I’ve used him for decades and his work is top notch.”

   Steve A. Buchwalter · Full thread (PDF)
2. Sept 22, 2023

   Fred Rosenberg replies to the whole list.

   His post, in full. We include the last two sentences because leaving them out is what he later accused our lawyers of doing. We don’t need to leave anything out.

   “One problem with Benson however, he has in the past been reluctant to produce his numbers in spreadsheet form if needed. And if deeper analysis is needed there’s nothing to work with. His numbers are good and reliable, and his reports and charts are accurate. Fred”

   Frederick Rosenberg to [email protected] · His own Exhibit 3 (PDF)

   The platform he was reviewing went online in 2011. Every account in it has exported to Excel, CSV and JSON with one click since the day it launched. It sits behind a login; Benson approves every account himself, and the server keeps the record of who has one.

   In the twelve years it had been running when he wrote this, Frederick Rosenberg never had an account. Never registered, never logged in, never saw a screen of it. His one data point — the Howard story, below — is from about 2017 by our records. The platform had been running six years by then, with the Excel button already on it.

   Read his post again. It is about a man being “reluctant.” Not a product, not a button, not a download. He did not know there was a product. He was reviewing a person he had never met, from a job he was not on, and warning several hundred attorneys off software he did not know existed.

3. Sept 22, 2023

   We ask him who he is.

   “I have a question — who are you? I do not remember ever working with you? And you are not a registered User in our system … All our data is online and fully downloadable into whatever format you need, including Excel. You just click a button. … Please get your facts straight.”

   Thomas Wm. Benson to Frederick Rosenberg
4. Sept 23, 2023

   He answers. This is the whole case.

   “Tom, years ago I worked with Howard Rosenfeld, more than 10 years ago. I do expert analysis with a database, especially with options, and need files to upload. So getting the spreads, is needed for my purposes. And you know Howard and getting him to get the info can be a challenge :). Anyway, I don’t do scheduling so getting reliable numbers in a form I can use is a big advantage.

   And whatever I posted ‘he has in the past been reluctant to produce his numbers in spreadsheet’ was well referenced. I don’t need to go farther but relax, and Steve Buchwalder updated the list on your services before you emailed. I haven’t challenged your work in the least, and said it was accurate and reliable. Have a nice day. fred”

   Frederick Rosenberg to Thomas Wm. Benson, cc Howard Rosenfield

   He opens with “Tom.” The email he was answering was signed “Benson.” Thomas Benson has gone by Benson his whole working life; “Tom” is what one or two twenty-year clients call him, Steve Buchwalter among them. Mr. Rosenberg had never met him. He took the name from Steve’s post — the one he had just answered with “one problem” — and used it the way you would address an old colleague.

   His source is a third party. “More than 10 years ago,” he says; about 2017, by our records — six years, and a platform that already did the thing he said it couldn’t. Either way, not him, and not recent. He says so himself. Then he tells us to relax.

   And note who he blamed. “You know Howard and getting him to get the info can be a challenge :)” — Howard Rosenfield, a working attorney and one of our oldest clients, named with a smiley face as the reason Mr. Rosenberg once didn’t get a spreadsheet he wanted. The “reluctance,” by his own account, was not ours. It was Howard’s. He posted it as ours anyway, and when asked to apologize to Howard for it, he sued instead.

   His defense, then and since, is that Steve Buchwalter “updated the list” before Benson even wrote in. Look at who did the correcting. Not Mr. Rosenberg — to this day he has not retracted a word. Someone else cleaned up after him, and he cites the cleanup as proof there was no mess. You can’t unring a bell. And he wasn’t the one who tried.

5. May 21, 2024

   Our lawyers ask him to correct it.

   Eight months later, having heard nothing, Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough sends a two-page cease-and-desist letter. It asks for no money. It asks him to delete the post, say he had never used the service, and apologize. That is the entire demand.

   The letter (PDF)
6. May 21, 2024

   He replies the same afternoon.

   “I have read your letter but I am perplexed as to exactly what I said or wrote that you refer to. … As for any public pronouncements that you demand, effectively admissions, I am unable to oblige but whatever it was I wrote was factual and in no way damaged you client. … The incident occurred 9 months ago I believe on the confidential, non-public, PIABA list-serve. and my records are long deleted and forgotten so I’m going on memory right now.”

   Frederick Rosenberg to Mark F. Raymond, Esq., cc PIABA

   Perplexed about what he wrote. Certain it was factual. And his proof that it did no harm: other people had to correct it.

7. May 31, 2024

   Ten days later, he sues the law firm.

   Not us. The lawyers. Rosenberg v. Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP, Supreme Court of the State of New York, Suffolk County, Index No. 613299/2024, filed pro se. For sending the letter above, he asks for:

   • $300,000emotional distress
   • $300,000loss of income and reputation
   • $900,000treble exemplary damages
   • $1,500,000plus a jury trial, an injunction, and a “bold face retraction”

   The complaint is sworn. In it, he states under penalty of perjury:

   “I do not do scheduling of accounts and do not compete in any way with Mr. Benson.”

   Verified Complaint ¶19 · Complaint (PDF) · Summons (PDF)

   Read that next to his email. In 2023, the “problem” was that he “need[ed] files to upload” and wanted “reliable numbers in a form I can use.” In 2024, under oath: he does not do this work and does not compete with us.

   So the only problem he ever named was his own convenience, a decade ago, on a job we did for someone else. He told several hundred attorneys it was ours. And when asked to take it back, he sued the people who asked.

8. June 2024

   A judge throws it out within a day.

   No answer was filed. None was needed. Within 24 hours of his buying the index number, the court dismissed it. A $1.5 million demand, a jury trial, an injunction, a sworn verification — gone before anyone had to respond to it.

   The court, it seems, was less perplexed than he was about what he had filed.

   Order of dismissal · document to follow