Description: Lawsuit against founder by limited liability company that pursued freedom of information law requests and litigation in connection with state attorneys general climate change investigations.
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Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, PLLC v. Schnare
Case Documents:
Filing Date Type File Action Taken Summary 04/06/2018 Complaint Download Complaint filed. Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, PLLC v. Schnare. A lawsuit was filed in Virginia state court in April 2018 by a professional limited liability company (Free Market Environmental Law Clinic, PLLC (Free Market)) established in 2011 that has filed a number of freedom of information law requests and related litigation related to investigations and potential investigations by state attorneys general into fossil fuel companies’ climate change disclosures. The defendant is David Schnare, the founder of Free Market. Free Market’s complaint asserted that Schnare committed legal malpractice, breached his fiduciary duty, and misappropriated funds. The complaint’s allegations included that Schnare formed Free Market as a limited liability corporation after representing to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) that it was a non-stock corporation, and subsequently filed forms with the IRS declaring that Free Market was a proper tax-exempt organization, “despite its actual organizational structure making this untrue.” Free Market alleged that Schnare hid his errors, told different stories to different audiences, and submitted different versions of organizational documents, “as circumstances dictated.” Free Market said the conflict created by Schnare’s negligent mistakes now required it to dissolve.