NYC-Tampa Radio: Todd Schnitt Loses Case Involving Attorney Fees

Todd Schnitt

Radio personality Todd Schnitt and his wife, Michelle, were hit Friday with nearly $700,000 in legal fees the couple had refused to pay after losing a defamation trial against rival shock jock Bubba the Love Sponge Clem in 2013.

Schnitt currently airs daily shows on iHeartMedia's WFLA 970 AM, WOR 710 AM in New York and in others markets via his syndicated show.

Handing a victory to the Schnitts' former attorneys at the law firm of Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick, a jury found the couple's claims of legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty baseless. After considering the case for nearly a day and a half, the six-person jury cleared the firm, along with the Schnitts' former attorney C. Philip Campbell, of wrongdoing, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

In addition to the roughly $1 million they already have paid the firm, the Schnitts may have to come up with $669,200 more. But Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick didn't get everything it wanted. Although the firm said the Schnitts owed it $978,278, jurors awarded it about $300,000 less in compensatory damages.

The verdict brought to an end nearly three years of litigation between the Schnitts and the legal team that represented them in their contentious five-year case against Clem.

"The Schnitts lost their trial to Bubba Clem, and ever since they have been desperately coming up with excuses to not pay their bill," Attorney Joe Varner said in his closing argument to the jury. "This case is about sore losers, plain and simple."