Wednesday, March 15, 2000 | 10:32 a.m.
Casino designer Mark Advent and Tri-M Holdings Inc. sued a Las Vegas architect and his attorney, alleging the defendants maliciously sued him over the design of the New York-New York hotel-casino.
Advent was accused of pilfering designs that were used for the hotel-casino, breaching a confidentiality agreement, infringing copyrights and misappropriating trade secrets in three lawsuits filed between 1996 and 1998 by Domingo Cambeiro, president of Domingo Cambeiro Professional Corp. and his attorney, Joseph S. Kistler of Gordon & Silver Ltd.
Advent, who alleged the defendants "misused the power and process of the U.S. District Court and Clark County District Court," seeks to recover attorneys' fees and other defense costs, "lost executive time and energy, lost profits, injury to reputation precluding valuable business opportunities and other damages."
Cambeiro, who claims he had submitted his drawings after he was approached in 1993 by contractor Americon Companies Inc. for a competition to design a New York-themed retail shopping center in Las Vegas for Advent, alleged his designs were modified and used without his authorization as a model for the New York-New York hotel-casino.
Cambeiro claimed the hotel casino's design was similar to his original designs for the shopping center, which included brownstone street facades and a skyline replica of the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Yankee Stadium, the World Trade Center and the Statue of Liberty.
Advent, who alleged Cambeiro filed copyright infringement claims only after plans to build the New York-New York hotel casino were announced, sued Cambeiro and Kistler in Clark County District Court on March 3, alleging they wrongfully persisted in prosecuting him even though two lawsuits they had filed on March 14, 1996, and April 6, 1998, failed.
Federal Judge Howard D. McKibben, who dismissed Cambeiro's allegations of copyright infringement and awarded attorneys' fees of up to $500,000 to Advent, said in a March 4, 1998, order, "no reasonable juror could find substantial similarity of ideas and expressive elements between the Cambeiro works and the alleged infringing works." Cambeiro could not be reached for comment.
A third similar suit filed by Cambeiro against Advent and Tri-M on Nov. 20, 1998, in Clark County District Court is pending. Cambeiro accused Americon, which he alleged is an agent for Advent and Tri-M, of breaching the confidentiality agreement when it disclosed his designs to another architect, Joel Bergman and to Primadonna Inc., then a partner with MGM Grand Inc. for the New York-New York hotel casino.
Cambeiro, who claimed his ideas for the "New York City Center" were to be kept secret under a confidentiality agreement he allegedly signed with Americon, said he was promised he would be hired as the project's architect if a deal materialized to build the strip mall.
But Advent disputed Cambeiro's claims. "That's a lie. I never signed any agreement with him. ... There were never any records Cambeiro could supply the court to substantiate that I breached any agreements with him."
The mall was never built because Advent wasn't able to acquire the land for it, said Michael Barbee, Advent's Los Angeles attorney.
Advent also accused the defendants of deliberately "harassing, embarassing and discrediting" him by deposing numerous gaming, development and entertainment industry executives.
"We believe that Cambeiro's claims have already been adjudicated against him, but he keeps bringing allegations that have been conclusively proven to be false. That's malicious prosecution," said Barney Ales, Advent's Las Vegas attorney.
"It is inappropriate to file an allegation as a fact which has been determined in another court to be false. ... If you file a suit that brings allegations that are meritless and you know it to be false and bring it in bad faith, then you can be held accountable for using the legal process for illegal proceeding or ulterior motive."
Kistler, Cambeiro's attorney, could not be reached for comment.
Cambeiro filed an appeal with the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals disputing the federal rulings.
But his appeal was rejected and the circuit court affirmed in a March 7 order the federal court's decision to award attorneys' fees to Advent because it found Cambeiro's "attempts to relitigate preempted claims (in the second suit) were objectively unreasonable."
The March 7 order said Cambeiro had filed the second complaint in state court, asserting similar claims of "conversion and unjust enrichment" after the federal court dismissed these claims.
Cambeiro, who said he wasn't compensated for his designs, claimed in his three lawsuits Advent was allegedly paid more than $50,000 by New York-New York hotel-casino for the use of his designs.
"Ideas are not copyrightable, only the manifestation and implementation of an idea. The court ruled in the first and second suit that the skyline of New York was in public domain, so Cambeiro has no copyright on it," Ales said.
The March 7 order affirmed McKibben's decision, saying "Cambeiro failed to identify any specific similarities between the Cambeiro (designs) and the New York Hotel. Instead Cambeiro relied on the theory that its selection, arrangement and coordination of the famous New York City icons into an integrated facade was entitled to copyright protection."
"By insisting on copyright protection against works which were not virtually identical, Cambeiro essentially sought a monopoly on the idea of a building whose structure incorporates New York City icons. This far exceeds the purpose and scope of copyright laws," the March 7 order said. "Awarding fees to the defendants, on the other hand, would 'promote the creation of works from an underlying work, which exists in the public domain.' "
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