In the dark arts of making mountains out of mole hills, there's nothing quite like an aggrieved attorney's letter to an opponent.
In 2016, attorney Dwain Downing gave us the $252 demand letter to a Texas restaurant who failed to give him a bowl of soup (he asked for $2.25 in damages for the missing soup and $250 for the "cost" he incurred to send the demand letter).
In 2019, attorney J Wade Smith gave us the "designer fence letter."
Who is attorney J Wade Smith?
J Wade Smith is the (now) internet-famous pen-name of Mr. James Wade Smith of Lake Charles, Louisiana. He's a licensed attorney with a (supposedly) designer, metal fence.
Mr. Smith reportedly wrote this letter to his neighbors shortly after the neighbors moved into Mr. Smith's neighborhood:
The internet, of course, has had a good time with this letter.
Dozens of people have apparently set up fake profiles for J Wade Smith on several review sites, and dozens more have actually written fake reviews--some scathing, some funny.
Part of the comedy is that the reviewers are not local to Lake Charles, yet are posting reviews as if they have had some dealings with Mr. Smith. As an aside, this also exemplifies one of the major problems with review sites: they can very quickly cause real, reputational harm when reviewers make up stuff, even if as a joke: because many people who rely on review sites when deciding whether or not to hire someone don't get past the star-rating, and therefore never engage with the underlying context or authenticity of the reviewed business's score.
But little has been written about the background of this story. So, naturally, as an interested private investigator, I looked into it myself. Here's what I found...
J Wade Smith handles legal cases in which child custody is at issue.
Specifically, Mr. Smith handles what are known in Louisiana as "Child In Need Of Care" cases. According to the American Bar Association...
"Child in Need of Care (CINC) is a legal term used in reference to a minor under 18-years-old who has been deemed as facing imminent harm while in the care of his or her parents, or similar parental figure, based on the judge’s discretion with respect to the governing law. There are various circumstances that can cause a child to come into state custody, and every state has its own guidelines for defining a CINC, however the typical reasons would be in cases of parental neglect, abuse, drug usage, abandonment, criminal prosecution, or other similarly aligned acts. Some states specifically state that if a parent’s inability to care and provide essentials for their child is due solely the parent’s financial situation, a judge cannot find a child to be in need of care. In the event that a child is found to be in need of care, said child may be taken into state custody and placed out of the home while the parents work towards regaining custody of their child."
In CINC cases, the element of supervision can be an important one. For example, if a child's parents work several jobs and must therefore be away from the home often, and the child is consequently left unsupervised for some period of time, this could be an important fact in determining whether the child gets to stay with her parents or are taken away. The subtext is that unsupervised children can be symptomatic of some sort of neglect or parental inability to properly care for the children.
In Mr. Smith's world, therefore, the allegation that a child is habitually left unsupervised can be a harbinger for legal action to take the children away from the parents.
...and that's the creepy part about Mr. Smith's letter.
The creepy thing is that the letter twice characterizes the children as "unsupervised."
Why is this creepy? Because, as an attorney, Mr. Smith handles cases (2012 example and 2017 example) in which the stakes entail parents losing custody of their children because the court deems them "children in need of care" (due to neglect, harm, etc.).
When you go back now and read the letter, you'll notice that it's not clear why Mr. Smith believed it was necessary to make that characterization of the children being unsupervised--twice in a three-paragraph letter.
So it does make you wonder what he might have been angling for, ostensibly as leverage to do whatever it takes down the road to protect his designer fence from children's' footballs.
Attorney J Wade Smith works in this office with (who appears to be) his wife Rhonda.
In this image from Google maps, you can see that the sign says both "Rhonda R. Smith - M.S.W., L.C.S.W." and "J. Wade Smith - Attorney at Law."
Only slightly more interesting than Mr. Smith's curious use of the word "unsupervised" and his apparent legal experience with court cases involving the question of whether children should be taken away from their parents, is that his office-mate Rhonda appears to be a social worker--someone who probably works exclusively with children in tricky situations, the kind that sometimes lead to CINC court cases.
Why do I find this slightly interesting?
The final paragraph of the letter uses the word "we," as in Mr. Smith and Rhonda, who, according to voter records, both appear to live in the 4313 Essex Street property with the designer fence. So, while the letter comes under Mr. Smith's letterhead, I imagine that Mr. and Mrs. Smith both discussed the matter before the letter was sent, honed its language based on their respective experience dealing with children alleged to be in need of care, and then toasted their prowess with some sort of designer cocktail.
Lastly, why do you suppose Mr. Smith really sent this letter?
This is my theory: Mr. Smith wanted to establish "proximate cause." Basically, if, in the future, Mr. Smith were to discover damage to his fence that was suspiciously football-shaped, he wanted to be able to march next door and hand his neighbors a bill.
How does the letter accomplish this? Imagine that Mr. Smith had not sent this letter. If the children across the street kicked a football into his fence a week later and caused damage, Mr. Smith might have a challenge proving that his neighbors' decision to allow their children to play football in the yard could foresee-ably cause damage to Mr. Smith's fence--not an impossible challenge, but a challenge nonetheless.
"A negligent act is the proximate cause of a plaintiff's injury if the injury is the natural and probable result of the act. In other words, proximate cause exists when the injury is the foreseeable result of the negligence."
This becomes more interesting (to me) when you notice that the children referred to in the first paragraph of Mr. Smith's letter are not necessarily the same children referred to in the second paragraph. In the first paragraph, the children are not said to belong to the letter's recipient. They are merely counted: two. But in the second paragraph, the children are said to belong to the letter' recipient.
Now, this might be a stretch--but I wonder if Mr. Smith is laying the groundwork for two possible claims in the future:
- "Your children damaged my fence."
- "You permitted some children to play in your yard, and those children damaged my fence."
The first claim probably would not require the letter to have been sent and received to establish proximate cause and foreseeability. But the second claim might depend on it. So, by sending the letter, Mr. Smith is both, in the short term, potentially accomplishing the objective of discouraging the neighbors from letting their kids play football in the yard, and, in the long term, expanding the scope of claims he might be able to make against his neighbors for football-shaped damages he discovers to his designer fence.
One of the many fake reviews someone left after this letter hit Twitter last week said...
"Great guy if you're looking for a designer de-fence. Specialises in litigation against children." It's intended to be satirical, of course, but it's actually partly true. Mr. Smith does handle litigation involving children--better hope it's not one day your children.