Jackass Lawyers File Frivolous Lawsuit Against Circa for Charging Sales Tax

By Scott Roeben, on December 01 2023
4 min read 16 comments
Downtown Las Vegas Las Vegas Las Vegas WTF

Just when you thought Las Vegas had reached peak stupid by hosting the F1 debacle, there’s this.

A group of misguided lawyers and casino customers has filed a class-action lawsuit against Circa, The D and Golden Gate related to its loyalty club, Club One.

The baseless lawsuit alleges Circa Hospitality Group “failed to disclose fees and taxes required on comps through its loyalty program.” Or as it’s known in legal circles, bullshit.

A.I. is so good, it not only delivered “donkey lawyers,” but added one of the donkey lawyers giving us the finger.

The plaintiffs (all five of them), claim they were “assessed fictitious fees or taxes whenever they attempted to use complimentary points to purchase food and other offerings.”

Maybe let that sink for a minute. These folks are mad about freebies. Remember, loyalty clubs give perks to players for their loyalty. They’re voluntary. Casinos don’t have to give players anything.

We should say up front we are not a legal expert. We are layperson. Which is sort of a misnomer given the fact we can’t remember the last time we got laid. But still.

We are, however, a noted authority on the subject of frivolous lawsuits and attorneys so deeply terrible they couldn’t successfully sue Vlad the Impaler for impaling, despite the word “impaler” being right in his name.

The asshat lawyers involved in this case are Robert Eglet, Robert Adams, Artemus Ham and Michael Kind. Note: “Asshat” is a subjective opinion, protected by the First Amendment. See also “boneheads,” “nitwits,” “mouth-breathers,” “bottom-dwellers” and “pettifoggers.”

A “pettfogger” is an old-timey term meaning “inferior legal practitioner” and is currently our favorite word aside from “brouhaha” and “titter.”

We’re missing The D. Also, that’s what she said.

The lawsuit was first reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which did its usual stellar job of not really comprehending what it was reporting.

Lest you claim we’re biased in favor of common sense by calling this lawsuit idiotic, here’s an example of the egregious, lawsuit-worthy conduct on the part of Circa’s deli, Saginaw’s: “Mr. Stokes was surprised to see that, in addition to the $23, defendant’s point-of-sale system assessed an additional $1.93 of ‘add on tax’ that was deducted from his earned comps balance.”

At the time of the Review-Journal’s story (and the one you’re actually reading), Circa hasn’t even been served papers. Which means the plaintiff’s lawyers in the case used the Review-Journal as a mouthpiece to get some P.R. for its nonsense. Shocker.

We reached out to Circa and got a statement, which we would describe as brilliant: “The ‘fictitious fees or taxes’ referenced are simply sales tax collected by our third-party restaurants as required by law.”

Or, in laypersons’ terms, “case dismissed.”

As usual, there’s more to the story, and you’ll only see it here.

The fact is this lawsuit isn’t really about Circa. It’s about Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts.

The legal eagles mentioned above are testing the waters, looking for minnows with their eyes on the big fish.

How do we know this? Because the terms and conditions of Club One are the same as the small print for Caesars Rewards, the loyalty club of Caesars Entertainment. They’re also very similar to MGM Rewards, the loyalty club of MGM Resorts.

The lawyers figure if they can made inroads with Circa’s loyalty club (they won’t), they could go after the really deep pockets next.

Such is the dumbassery of ambulance chasers. Thank you, again, Founding Fathers! Sorry, Founding Pangender Individuals! Oh, we’ll be canceled at some point, but today is not that day.

Anyway, we’ll be watching this one. We trust we’re missing something, and we fully admit we aren’t objective when it comes to Club One because we love it and use the very generous dining credits pretty much 3-4 times a week to order the “Vital Vegas-style” fried rice at 8 East (the brisket fried rice with chicken skewers mixed in, see below). We’ve never seen any “fictitious fees or taxes” on our bill there, by the way.

Worth mentioning: That’s much bigger than it looks. We really should’ve saved the “That’s what she said!” for this. Oh, well.

We consider loyalty club perks a very thoughtful thank-you for our hundreds of thousands of dollars of coin-in. We would play at the award-winning Circa and Golden Gate and The D even if there was no loyalty club at all. Getting something back for our play, other than entertainment and possibly a fleeting and respectful eyeful of dancing dealers, is gravy.

Lawyers gonna lawyer, but it’s a shame Circa has to waste its time and money dealing with such nonsense. Trust us, we know about wasted time and money dealing with frivolous lawsuits. In our case, the ninnyhammer plaintiff and his pettifoggers had to pay more than $95,000 of our legal fees when they lost the case. We’re pretty sure anti-SLAPP statues don’t apply to frivolous lawsuits against casinos.

We are proud of our longtime shaming of venues with hidden fees, but this isn’t that. This is a Hail Mary lawsuit in hopes some judge will be hung over and do something ill-advised, opening the door to other suits against the big players on The Strip.

Lawyers don’t need to win, they get commissions on settlements. Let’s hope Circa fights the good fight. Caesars and MGM should help with their legal fees.