\n<\/p>\n
In a room full of cubicles, workers in headsets read from their computer screens, addressing callers who dialed a 1-800 number. They have a script.<\/p>\n
\u201cWere you or your loved one sexually abused by Sean \u2018Love\u2019 Combs, known as Diddy, Puff Daddy and P. Diddy?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf the abuse occurred at a party, please list the name of the party. What kind of party was it?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Their employer, Reciprocity Industries<\/a>, is a legal services company located in a low-slung building in Billings, Mont., more than 2,000 miles from the Brooklyn jail where Mr. Combs awaits trial on federal racketeering and sex trafficking charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n For years, the company has helped seed litigation by fielding complaints from people hurt by natural disasters, weedkillers or abusive clergy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Now it\u2019s the central collection point for sexual assault allegations against Mr. Combs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some complaints come in through the phone, others arrive online in response to ads promoted on Facebook and Instagram. (A news conference where a backdrop displayed the hotline in large red numbers made headlines last October.)<\/p>\n By the company\u2019s count, it has received some 26,000 contacts. It has deemed hundreds of complaints worthy of review. Already, the lead lawyer handling these cases, Tony Buzbee, a high-profile litigator from Houston, has filed nearly 40 lawsuits against Mr. Combs. He says more are coming.<\/p>\n In their court filings, Mr. Combs\u2019 accusers describe harrowing abuse. Fifteen <\/strong>plaintiffs say he raped them. Three say they were minors at the time. The accounts are often similar: a drink at a party, unusual wooziness and a sexual assault. All were initially filed anonymously.<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cPlaintiff has experienced a significant impact on her personal life,\u201d lawyers said in a suit that accused Mr. Combs of assaulting a woman at a hotel in 2014.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The cases against Mr. Combs, who denies assaulting anyone, amount to what\u2019s called a mass tort, in which many people, often drawn by advertising, file claims against a common defendant.<\/p>\n This growing area of the law has long been divisive.<\/p>\n Lawyers for plaintiffs say the cases foster justice for those who have suffered at the hands of powerful people or institutions, such as former Boy Scouts who were sexually abused. But critics say mass torts, and the advertising often aligned with them, can draw frivolous claims that are haphazardly vetted, and that the sheer volume of cases can overwhelm both the court system and defense teams.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It will be months, perhaps years, before settlements, dismissals or verdicts resolve whether Mr. Combs was a serial predator. But his lawyers are already challenging the ways in which many of the cases have been collected.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have seen a very high volume of very, very dubious cases,\u201d Mark Cuccaro, one of Mr. Combs\u2019s lawyers, told a judge at a hearing in January.<\/p>\n Mr. Combs denies sexually assaulting anyone and has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges. His lawyers say the deluge of suits is not evidence of guilt, only proof that some people will seek to feed off financial settlements from a wealthy celebrity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n One case was withdrawn last month<\/a> after the plaintiff, who said she had been raped by Mr. Combs and the rapper Jay-Z when she was 13, acknowledged having made mistakes in her account in an interview with NBC News<\/a>. Her allegations have precipitated a contentious legal battle involving private investigators and courts in multiple states.<\/p>\n In another Combs case, aspects of an anonymous man\u2019s lawsuit accusing Mr. Combs of rape \u2014 including the year \u2014 were amended after inconsistencies emerged in his interview with CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Buzbee said those issues should not affect the other cases. \u201cI\u2019ve always said that each case lives or dies on its own merit,\u201d he said in an interview.<\/p>\n The increase in mass torts related to sexual abuse has been driven in part by laws established in the #MeToo era that extended new opportunities for plaintiffs who did not bring claims during the typical statute of limitations.<\/p>\n Reciprocity Industries, however, did not enter the Combs case because it was approached by people who said they had been abused, according to Andrew Van Arsdale, the lawyer in charge of the company. It entered, he said, after he noted that an explosive lawsuit<\/a> had been filed by a former girlfriend of Mr. Combs and that the music mogul had settled<\/a> it the next day.<\/p>\n \u201cPredators don\u2019t just do it to one person,\u201d Mr. Van Arsdale said in an interview, \u201cthey do it to many, many people.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Within days, he said, his firm had taken out its first social media ad asking people about their interactions with Mr. Combs.<\/p>\n The legal landscape changed dramatically in 1977, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the prohibition<\/a> against lawyer advertising violated the First Amendment. Soon lawyers\u2019 faces and testimonials were popping up in newspapers and on television.<\/p>\n Rules developed by courts and bar associations restrict lawyers, generally, from calling people injured in, say, a car crash to ask if they can represent them. But advertising a lawyer\u2019s services in a public forum and, in some cases, tailoring the messaging to a particular group of potential plaintiffs is allowed. Rules prohibit false or misleading ads.<\/p>\n Disciplinary action for infractions is uncommon, experts say, but court disciplinary bodies do review ads in response to complaints.<\/p>\n Advocates for mass-tort reform, often lawyers who represent companies facing litigation, have sought more regulations on the content of ads and the role of third-party investors who help finance some claims with huge numbers of plaintiffs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Spending on mass-tort television advertising has averaged about $190 million per year over the past decade, according to X Ante, a data analysis company. But social media has become the new frontier.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so much easier and faster to reach that many more people,\u201d said Karen Barth Menzies, a lawyer who has been working on mass-tort cases since the 1990s.<\/p>\n Unlike class-action lawsuits, in which a small number of plaintiffs represent a larger group of people, often with largely identical complaints, mass torts are filed as many individual lawsuits that typically feature similar, but factually distinct claims against the same defendant.<\/p>\n Reciprocity, which Mr. Van Arsdale operates with a friend from high school, a software engineer, does not actually file mass-tort lawsuits. It assists them by collecting and assessing complaints and turning them over to client law firms or to his own law firm, which is a separate company, to litigate.<\/p>\n Mr. Van Arsdale has been in the legal advertising business since 2006, viewing his whole career as devoted to getting people access to the justice system. He decided to become a lawyer and passed the bar in 2018. Shortly after, he was asked to join his first sexual abuse case, the mass tort in which the Boy Scouts organization was accused of failing to protect children.<\/p>\n Mr. Van Arsdale and his colleagues took out television spots in search of potential plaintiffs. \u201cIt took three weeks of ads to even get the first case,\u201d he said. As the calls and cases rolled in, Mr. Van Arsdale hired more staff. Today, Reciprocity employs roughly 70 employees to answer the phones 24\/7 and more than 30 others to further develop potential cases.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the Combs case, three potential clients signed up after the first advertisement. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t as big as we thought it was going to be,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Then Mr. Combs was indicted, and Mr. Van Arsdale\u2019s law firm took out another round of social media ads.<\/p>\n \u201cThe world is watching P. Diddy\u2019s case unfold,\u201d one read, alongside an A.I.-generated image of Mr. Combs in jail. \u201cIf you\u2019ve been silenced, now is the time to find your voice.\u201d<\/p>\n The contacts began to flow in much more quickly.<\/p>\n About a week later, Mr. Van Arsdale said, Mr. Buzbee reached out. Years earlier, he said, Reciprocity had helped Mr. Buzbee with advertising on another mass-tort case<\/a>.<\/p>\n A hard-charging lawyer, Mr. Buzbee built his career<\/a> filing lawsuits on behalf of oil and gas workers and won some eye-popping verdicts. More recently, he secured settlements for more than two dozen women<\/a> who accused the football player Deshaun Watson of sexual misconduct in massage appointments.<\/p>\n \u201cWe started talking about Diddy,\u201d Mr. Van Arsdale recalled of their conversation in September. \u201cI said, \u2018Well, we\u2019ve got some cases \u2014 I think this is real.\u2019 He said, \u2018Well, let\u2019s go, I\u2019d love to work on those.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n It takes three elevators to reach Mr. Buzbee\u2019s penthouse office on the 75th floor of the tallest building in Texas. Inside, sharks are the decorative motif: a silver sculpture of one, shark-shaped doorknobs and a shark tattoo on Mr. Buzbee\u2019s right forearm.<\/p>\n In Houston, where he ran for mayor in 2019, Mr. Buzbee is a well-known figure, largely because of his work, but also because of his penchant for spectacle.<\/p>\n A former Marine captain, Mr. Buzbee caused a stir<\/a> in 2017 by parking a World War II-era tank outside his home in the city. On his ranch in northeast Texas, he keeps hundreds of animals, including zebras and camels that draw the attention of passing drivers. His clients have included former Gov. Rick Perry, who later served as the best man when he married several years ago.<\/p>\n When disaster strikes, Mr. Buzbee often enters the legal fray. He filed suits after Hurricane Harvey, after a deadly crowd surge<\/a> at Travis Scott\u2019s Astroworld festival and after the fatal implosion<\/a> of the Titan submersible, in which he represents the family of Paul-Henri Nargeolet<\/a>, a maritime expert who died in the disaster.<\/p>\n \u201cI get a lot of calls from people that have worked their cases up to a point where they need somebody to come try them, like they can\u2019t do that part of it,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s the part I do the best.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Colleagues describe Mr. Buzbee as an unrelenting litigator who, as a businessman, can choose to accept only cases he believes in. \u201cTony gets to say \u2018no\u2019 anytime he wants,\u201d said Chad Pinkerton, who once worked at Mr. Buzbee\u2019s firm.<\/p>\n Six days after Mr. Buzbee and Mr. Van Arsdale agreed to work together on the Combs cases, they held a news conference at which Mr. Buzbee announced they had 120 clients who intended to sue the music mogul, speaking in front of the sign featuring Reciprocity\u2019s 1-800 number. \u201cThe biggest secret in the entertainment industry that really wasn\u2019t a secret at all has finally been revealed to the world,\u201d Mr. Buzbee told those gathered.<\/p>\n Within 24 hours, the hotline received roughly 12,000 calls. \u201cIt broke our systems,\u201d Mr. Van Arsdale said.<\/p>\n Lawyers for Mr. Combs have called the news conference a \u201cpublicity stunt\u201d and Mr. Buzbee a \u201c1-800 attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSean Combs has never sexually assaulted or trafficked anyone \u2014 man or woman, adult or minor,\u201d they said in a statement. \u201cNo number of lawsuits, sensationalized allegations, or media theatrics will change that reality.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Complaints about Sean Combs to Reciprocity Industries often start with calls to the room filled with cubicles, known as \u201cthe floor.\u201d From there, they progress through a system that Mr. Van Arsdale said ferrets out false claims.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to have scam artists out there, right?\u201d he said in an interview. \u201cYou\u2019re going to have crank callers and that\u2019s just part of it, right? But you need to have the proper processes and procedures in place to try to stomp them out.\u201d<\/p>\n A questionnaire from a call is reviewed by a second employee, who decides whether to pass it on to \u201clitigation support.\u201d There, staffers gather more information and test whether an account is consistent, Mr. Van Arsdale said.<\/p>\n People who respond to social media ads online are called by agents who walk them through the questionnaire. Some contacts have come in through an Arizona law firm that is behind a website<\/a> urging users to \u201csee if you qualify\u201d to join the Combs litigation. The firm is paid a referral fee for successful claims, Mr. Van Arsdale said.<\/p>\n Claims that survive the weed-out process are sent to Mr. Van Arsdale\u2019s law firm, which is about a 15-minute drive away. There, lawyers seek further corroboration, including witness testimony and police or medical records, he said.<\/p>\n All of the more than 26,000 contacts related to the Combs cases are organized in a database. More than 600 came to be viewed as potential cases, Mr. Van Arsdale said. Others, he said, were often found to be from pranksters, or people who viewed themselves as witnesses or who had called to complain about something else.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Some 200 files were sent on to Mr. Buzbee\u2019s firm, where Mr. Buzbee said he has lawyers and former police personnel who continue to vet the claims.<\/p>\n As is typical in mass-tort cases, the lawyers handling the Combs lawsuits would collect a portion of any money awarded in a verdict or settlement, typically 40 percent, Mr. Van Arsdale said. Reciprocity charges fees to the law firms that hire it, and uses that income to support its outreach.<\/p>\n In the Boy Scouts case, Mr. Van Arsdale and co-counsels represent roughly 11,000 plaintiffs with accounts of sexual abuse. Several years ago, one of the institution\u2019s insurance carriers, Century Indemnity Company, described Reciprocity in court papers as a \u201cclaims aggregator\u201d and questioned its scrutiny of claims, its use of financial incentives and the accuracy of the ads it was using.<\/p>\n As evidence, it submitted an affidavit by a former Reciprocity employee who said she had been paid weekly bonuses based on how many claimants she signed up \u2014 to start, $200 if she signed up 20.<\/p>\n Experts say the payment of such incentives is an ethical gray area, though they were not aware of any specific prohibition.<\/p>\n Mr. Van Arsdale said other call centers use incentives but that he got rid of them at his company because they had become a \u201cdistraction.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThe same kind of rigorous vetting process that we have and exists today existed then,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The woman who accused Jay-Z, born Shawn Carter, and Mr. Combs of raping her when she was 13 first gave her account to Reciprocity last fall after responding to a Facebook ad, according to Mr. Van Arsdale.<\/p>\n In her subsequent lawsuit, she described being driven to a party after the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, where she was given a drink, felt woozy and ended up in a bedroom. She said Mr. Combs and \u201cCelebrity A,\u201d later identified in court papers as Mr. Carter, took turns assaulting her there.<\/p>\n But some details of her account later unraveled. After escaping the house, the suit says, the teenager ran to a gas station, where she called her father to pick her up. Her father, though, who lived in Rochester, N.Y., a five-hour drive from Manhattan, told NBC News he did not recall such a trip.<\/p>\n In the NBC interview, the woman had identified a musician she said she had spoken to at the party. But the musician had actually been on tour that night in the Midwest.<\/p>\n At a news conference, Mr. Carter\u2019s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said the suit made \u201ca mockery\u201d of the justice system.<\/p>\n Mr. Carter accused Mr. Buzbee of trying to blackmail him. He said that weeks earlier, when the court filing had only identified him as \u201cCelebrity A,\u201d the lawyer sent him a letter suggesting they resolve the matter through \u201cconfidential mediation.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Buzbee said such mediation efforts are standard practice and insisted the complaint had been vetted properly by his lawyers and a retired police detective. He called it \u201coutrageous\u201d to expect someone victimized as a minor to have \u201cperfect recall\u201d more than two decades later.<\/p>\n In February, Mr. Buzbee withdrew the woman\u2019s suit, but the court battle has only grown more bitter.<\/p>\n Last week, Mr. Carter sued the woman and two of her lawyers<\/a>, Mr. Buzbee and David Fortney. In court papers submitted by Mr. Carter, a private investigator said she had visited the woman on her front porch in Alabama, where she said the woman admitted her rape claim against Mr. Carter was false.<\/p>\n As for the vetting, court papers filed by Mr. Carter\u2019s lawyers say a public record search would have shown that the woman had a \u201clegally-documented history of mental health issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Buzbee has disputed that his client recanted, and in a recent affidavit, the woman said she stood by her account. She said one reason she had decided to dismiss the lawsuit was because she was \u201cfrightened by the reaction of Jay-Z and his supporters\u201d and was concerned she would eventually have to be named. In an email, Mr. Buzbee declined to comment on his client\u2019s mental state, saying it had \u201cnothing to do with her ability to state truth.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Carter\u2019s complaint has been embraced by Mr. Combs, whose lawyers said the suit was \u201cjust the first of many that will not hold up in a court of law.\u201d<\/p>\n But the more than 50 lawsuits accusing Mr. Combs of sexual abuse extend beyond those vetted and filed by Mr. Buzbee. More than a dozen other lawyers represent clients who say they were victimized by Mr. Combs, and most of those plaintiffs have sued under their own names.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cIt validates their own story to hear that they weren\u2019t the only ones,\u201d said Michelle Caiola, a lawyer representing two of those plaintiffs.<\/p>\n Last month, Mr. Buzbee filed seven more lawsuits from anonymous plaintiffs who accused Mr. Combs of sexual abuse or violence. One man said he was raped in a hotel room when he was 14 years old.<\/p>\n Mr. Van Arsdale said the ads surrounding the Combs case, having run their course, have been pulled, but the hotline still gets calls.<\/p>\n More recently, the law firm had an ad campaign addressed toward people who feel they were harmed by three brothers who have pleaded not guilty to sex trafficking<\/a> charges in New York.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you or a loved one at any time experienced inappropriate behavior by Oren, Tal or Alon Alexander,\u201d one Instagram ad read, \u201cyou may be entitled to significant compensation.\u201d<\/p>\n Joe Coscarelli and Ben Sisario contributed reporting. Kirsten Noyes contributed research.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe Rise of Mass Torts<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
His Profile Is Big, Like Texas<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
In Montana, at the Call Center<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
An Accuser Becomes a Defendant<\/h2>\n