Firm suing Pisanchyn Law Firm for breach of contract may proceed with suit
A telephone directory advertising service suing the Pisanchyn Law Firm over more than $250,000 of unpaid invoices may proceed with its lawsuit after a Lackawanna County judge rejected preliminary objections seeking to dismiss it.
Ogden Directories Inc. alleges in the suit that Pisanchyn failed to pay about $260,903 in advertising invoices for services provided between November 2020 and June 2022. Including attorney fees, Ogden seeks nearly $314,000 in damages for breach of contract.
The law firm wrote in a March brief that Ogden's complaint "contains no more than boilerplate allegations and language." It fails to set forth facts supporting the breach of contract claims and seeks fees and costs without specifying the factual basis for those claims, Pisanchyn argued in the brief.
Ogden also failed to attach essential documents forming a basis for its claims, Pisanchyn argued. While the plaintiffs "did attach numerous purported contracts and invoices for each of the alleged breached contract, they did not attach the essential terms of each contract," the law firm's brief notes.
In a ruling last week, county Judge Terrence R. Nealon overruled Pisanchyn's preliminary objections in their entirety.
Ogden filed more than 300 pages of advertising contracts and invoices showing it and Pisanchyn entered into agreements for the law firm's advertisements to appear in phone directories in designated markets, Nealon noted in an order June 13. The law firm's argument that Ogden failed to attach essential documents forming the basis for its claims is "without merit," Nealon ruled.
He also ruled that facts set forth in the complaint and attached exhibits "sufficiently apprise Pisanchyn of the breach of contract and unjust enrichment claims being asserted."
"When examined in their entirety, those allegations and exhibits sufficiently notify Pisanchyn of the claims against which it must defend in this case," Nealon wrote in the order.
The judge gave the law firm 20 days to respond to the allegations in Ogden's complaint.
Douglas Yazinski, a Pisanchyn attorney representing the law firm in the matter, did not respond to an email seeking comment.
