A lawyer has been fined $10,000 after he sent a builder more than a hundred threatening messages during a dispute about construction work at his home.
The texts included the lawyer saying "your workmanship sux shit", "we can't even use this toilet you useless builder" and "dodgy!!" [sic].
In an ACT Civil and Administrative Tribunal decision published on Friday, July 3, Fabio Fior was found to have acted in a way that constituted unsatisfactory professional conduct.
The ACT Law Society took the man to the tribunal seeking disciplinary action for contacting another solicitor's client and actions which were likely to bring the legal profession into disrepute.
Mr Fior, who has been in the legal profession for more than 20 years and is a partner in a law firm, was publicly reprimanded and fined $10,000 with less than a month to pay.
In November 2022, Mr Fior entered into a major works contract with a builder for extensive construction at their Canberra home.
The builder was not named in the published decision.
The work had begun in September 2022 and was completed about eight months later.
In July 2023, Mr Fior had moved in and sent the builder a remedial notice and notice of default under the contract.
This was sent from his work account and included his professional signature block.
The same month he sent a further email from his work account advising that he was cataloguing all defects and would lodge a complaint with the ACT Planning and Land Authority.
Mr Fior signed off "I look forward to hearing from you or your solicitors with a substantial offer of compensation".
On July 23, 2023, he sent about 100 text messages to the builder.
The messages were later found by the tribunal to be "insulting, harassing and threatening".
They included: "Because I'm going to lodge a massive counterclaim and it'll give me the opportunity to post our dispute on my LinkedIn" and "you tried to short-change me; I'm going to bite you hard".
A few days later, the builder's solicitor sent two letters to Mr Fior containing a letter of compromise and asking him to send all future correspondence to their office.
On August 5 the same year, the lawyer sent more text messages to the builder including: "you dodgy bastards" and "we are going to expose you so everyone knows about [your company]!!! FU".
Mr Fior later sent emails from his work account to the solicitor stating that he was "furious", and threatened "we are going to expose your client for the completely shoddy workmanship it has demonstrated on this house".
"I will be aggressively chasing [the client] personally," he emailed.
On August 10, Mr Fior again sent a barrage of texts to the builder stating he was "going to bankrupt" the business and "there will be no phoenix company arising from your ashes".
"Come back to me with an offer of $200k and I'll consider it," he said.
The next day, a different law firm, engaged by the builder, issued a cease-and-desist letter to Mr Fior, requiring him to stop communicating with the builder, except through a solicitor.
He responded by sending two emails to the law firm, saying he was going to print off the previous email and use it as "TP". This was presumed to mean toilet paper.
Senior Member Robert Orr found Mr Fior's "emotional involvement in the building dispute severely compromised his objectivity and patience".
"It makes no difference that the messages were sent in the 'heat of the moment': the impact on their recipients and the reputation of the legal profession is the same," he said.
