Klayman vs. Mom Suit
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KLAYMAN CHRONICLES
Family Feud
Adversaries have described Larry Klayman as the sort of guy who would sue his
mother. Turns out, he's the kind of guy who would sue his mother and take the
case to trial.
The chairman of Judicial Watch, a crusading conservative with a yen for
hardball and a knack for peppering Clintonites with litigation, now has Mom
in his sights. Barring a last-minute settlement, Klayman's lawsuit against
the seventysomething lady who brought him into this world goes to trial today
in D.C. Superior Court.
The case is a spat about money. Klayman says his mother, Shirley Feinberg,
reneged on a vow to cover the health-care costs of his grandmother,
Feinberg's mom. According to Klayman, his now-deceased grandmother gave
Feinberg tens of thousands of dollars that was supposed to be spent on his
grandmother's hospital and nursing-home care.
But Feinberg has refused to part with the money, Klayman alleges in court
filings, even though he incurred roughly $50,000 in expenses after he moved
his grandmother from Pennsylvania to a Washington nursing home and later
Georgetown University Hospital. He's suing to force his mother to fork over
the cash.
Feinberg counters in court documents that her mother gave her the money, no
strings attached. She says she was paying for her mother's care in
Pennsylvania but opposed her son's decision to move her to Washington. She
adds that she never agreed to pay medical bills that she says Klayman rang up
because he neglected to win preapproval for his grandmother's treatment with
her health insurer.
"I did not in March 1997, promise Larry Klayman that I would pay him for any
medical or other expenses he might incur on behalf of my mother Yetta
Goldberg," she stated in a sworn affidavit. "On the contrary," she continued,
"on that occasion, Larry Klayman was verbally abusive to me and to my aunt
(Yetta Goldberg's sister), which forced us to leave his house and go to a
hotel for the night. Moreover, on this occasion, Larry Klayman's wife,
Stephanie Klayman, was crying while Larry Klayman was screaming at my aunt
and me."
A scene from "The Waltons" it isn't. In a May news release, Klayman stated
that Yetta had raised him, and he accused his mother and stepfather of
neglecting Yetta, misappropriating her life savings and allowing her health
insurance to lapse. "We tried to settle it, we couldn't settle it," he said
of the suit during an appearance that same month on the cable chat show
"Hardball."
Although there is nothing quite so public as a trial, Klayman initially tried
to keep this lawsuit a private matter. He kept his name off the title of the
case by filing it under the name of his collection agency, Accounts Inc. But
in May, Newsweek ran an item about the suit, provoking a volcanic Judicial
Watch news release. The magazine "uses this information, which was obviously
dug up by private investigators of the Clintons, to suggest that the Judicial
Watch chairman will sue anyone, and to hurt Klayman by trampling on the
memory of his grandmother. This is untrue, unfair and outrageous!" the
release exclaimed. "Klayman looks to no one, other than God, for his guidance
and direction."
