Suit Says Business on the Line : Wrong number: Phone book mistake has hungry callers trying to order pizzas from an artists’ management company, tying up the firm’s phone.

The nightmare began with a single call for a pizza.

Sorry, wrong number, Rose-Marie Malek-Yonan told the hungry caller. This is an artists’ management company--not a pizza parlor.

Later that day, two more callers trying to order a Domino’s pizza reached the family-run business in Glendale instead. Strange coincidence, Malek-Yonan thought, to have three people in one day dial the wrong number.

But it was no coincidence, Malek-Yonan learned from the fourth pizza-seeking caller. The phone number for GMY & Associates--a father-and-daughter business run out of the Malek-Yonans’ home--was listed in the Donnelly Directory as the number of a local Domino’s Pizza parlor.

Since April, thousands of would-be Domino’s customers have called the Malek-Yonans’ home day and night, interfering with business, using up answering machine tape, and disturbing the family’s sleep, she said Monday.

When the magnitude of the problem became apparent, George Malek-Yonan and his daughter Rose-Marie said they offered to change their business phone number if Domino’s or Donnelly would pay for advertisements and a mass mailing so the company could notify its performing arts clients and industry contacts of the change.

She said that after six years with the same phone number, GMY & Associates would certainly lose business if it abruptly changed its number without notification, estimating that it would cost more than $40,000 to advertise the change.

But she said the phone book and pizza companies blamed each other for the error, refused to pay the costs and “said there was no way they would pay for anything.” Executives of Domino’s did ask, however, if the Malek-Yonans would give pizza customers their phone number, she said.

Fed up, George and Rose-Marie Malek-Yonan filed suit in Glendale Superior Court last week against Domino’s Pizza Inc., Donnelly Information Publishing Inc., and Yellow Pages Marketing Services Inc., seeking $750,000 for emotional distress, negligence and lost business.

A Donnelly Directory spokeswoman denied that the company was responsible for the error, saying it simply printed an advertisement submitted by Yellow Pages Marketing Inc., an advertising company.

A Domino’s corporate spokesman said that the Domino’s involved was an independently owned franchise. Steve Bergan, a supervisor for the franchise, said that he did not know who was responsible for the error but that advertising agency executives told him they were working out the problem with the Malek-Yonans. Yellow Pages Marketing could not be reached for comment.

Monica Malek-Yonan, George’s other daughter who handles the company’s legal affairs and also lives in the house, said about 35 to 40 people call each day during business hours for pizza, and calls increase at night.

On weekends, about 200 calls come in, she said. Many of the callers do not speak English and some call back several times after they are told they have the wrong number, she said.

“The phone rings every five minutes. It starts early in the morning and they call until 2 a.m.,” she said. “It does cause serious harm to us and our clients. People call and say ‘Your phone is constantly busy,’ and clients complain that they can’t get through.

“In the beginning it was funny. We didn’t realize the number of calls we were going to get,” she said. But now, she said, “it is a nightmare.”