News: Anita Baker Countersues Home Improvement Company

Grammy Award-winning singer Anita Baker responded to a decorating company’s lawsuit over $15,351 by filing a lawsuit of her own.
Lawyers with Ray A. Smith Painting and Decorating “intended to put her in as embarrassing a light as possible” leading to a bench warrant for her arrest in the initial suit, which dates to 2011, said her lawyer, Jamal Hamood of Rochester. He said she had no idea the lawsuit existed until well after the case had been decided against her.
The 2011 lawsuit was scheduled for a hearing Friday in Wayne County Circuit Court, but it was postponed to April 25 because of a medical emergency involving the plaintiffs, Hamood said. The decorating company’s attorney, Daniel Gerow, didn’t respond to a request for comment by deadline.
Hamood said that at the hearing, he intends to ask to have the default set aside, giving Baker, 56, a chance to fight the lawsuit. He filed Baker’s lawsuit against the decorating company on April 15.
The bench warrant stemmed from Baker’s failure to appear at a creditor’s examination last September after she was subpoenaed in a case that alleges she failed to pay $15,351.41 for work done on her Grosse Pointe home, Gerow previously said.
He said Baker owes the money to his client for carpentry, plastering and painting work done at her home in 2009.
Baker, who grew up in Detroit, is best known for a series of hit songs in the mid-1980s and early ’90s, including “Sweet Love” and “Giving You the Best That I Got.”