In one of the first legal cases of its kind, tournament pro Lee Childs (pictured) recently prevailed in a $40,000 lawsuit brought against him by a former poker backer.

The plaintiff in the case, Lynne Mitchnick, accused Childs, best known for a final table appearance at the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event, of breach of contract in an agreement that the pro had signed nearly four years earlier. The suit seemingly came out of the blue, as Childs had never received complaints from Mitchnick and the pair had profited from the relationship in the long-term.

After being served with a civil summons during a tournament break at Borgata, Childs contacted attorney and former poker pro David Zeitlin, with whom he had been acquainted in the past. “I found the lawsuit distasteful in that, in my opinion, it violated an unstated rule that gambling disputes be handled in house, within the gambling world,” said Zeitlin on his blog. “Something about an investor requesting that someone gamble with her funds, then asking the gambler to refund her losses just did not sit well with me… In short, the case sounded like a bunch of B.S.”

Yet Mitchnick was intent on moving forward with the suit, even after Childs offered her what he believed to be a “generous settlement.” Zeitlin agreed to take on the case and recruited his father, also an experienced lawyer and a New Jersey attorney, and enlisted several poker players to serve as expert witnesses.

Mitchnick claimed that by not complying with several burdensome stipulations in the original contract, Childs had breached the agreement and should be forced to pay $40,000 in makeup, or rather, the amount that a stakee must return before taking a cut for himself.

Zeitlin argued that the terms that were supposedly violated, which included providing Mitchnick with live tournament schedules six months in advance and providing tax documents by January 31, were immaterial to the case and did not result in any financial harm to the plaintiff. Using his knowledge of the poker world, Zeitlin also pointed out that tournament schedules are not even released at such an early date.

Mitchnick furthermore argued that in several cases, Childs had not played to “the best of his ability” as laid out in their contract. She cited the fact that she had seen Childs drink a beer at the final table of a tournament, which he played out to the end, winning less than he would have in a chop.

But, Childs explained that his backer demanded that he not accept a split and to play out the tournament, as he was better than the other players. Zeitlin asked why, if she thought Childs was impaired, would she have ordered the pro to not accept the split.

But one of the main points of contention was how to define “makeup” and whether it should be paid as damages. For that, Childs’ team brought in longtime staker Eric sheets Haber (pictured) as an expert witness. But, having not written any scholastic articles on the subject, his testimony was not allowed by the judge.

The trial was fought “as fiercely as a million-dollar suit between multi-national corporate entities,” said Zeitlin. “I was fully aligned to Lee’s side… and emotionally invested to an extent that was frankly unhealthy.”

After deliberating for six hours, the jury announced its verdict. They agreed that Childs had violated all six of his “player responsibilities” in the contract, but that none of them were material. They sided with the defendant’s argument that he had always played to the best of his ability and that providing live schedules six months in advance was impossible. Their final decision was that zero damages should be awarded to Mitchnick in a 6-0 vote.

“In short, the jury found that Mitchnick v. Childs was B.S.,” wrote Zeitlin. After the trial, Childs took to Twitter and announced that the verdict was a “big win for poker players.”

In the end, though, the poker player turned attorney could not understand Mitchnick’s motivation for using the courts to litigate for a relatively small sum of money. “Nobody truly won here. This lawsuit was, in my opinion, not an ideal use of our justice system. A lot of time, energy, and money was wasted by both parties,” he concluded.

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