Golly, once again I’m thinking the Rigsby sisters must curse the day they met Dickie Scruggs. Here’s the latest from Anita Lee:
Former insurance adjusters Cori and Kerri Rigsby are on the hook for $65,000 that attorney Dickie Scruggs refuses to fork over to their former employers, Alabama-based E.A. Renfroe.
Scruggs has placed the money with the federal court while he appeals Judge William M. Acker Jr.’s decision to fine him and the Rigsbys that amount for civil contempt in Renfroe v. Rigsby. Meanwhile, Acker has ruled, the Rigsbys must pay the fine within 14 days.
If they don’t pay, Renfroe could take their property, garnish their bank accounts or pursue other remedies. …
The 65K is to cover Renfroe’s legal expenses incurred in trying to get back the company records the Rigsbys made off with. He also wants all money the sisters earned from Dickie. Not only that but, Anita reminds us,
Renfroe also seeks any money the Rigsbys realize from a whistle-blower lawsuit that accuses State Farm of falsely charging the federal flood insurance program for Katrina damage.
The judge is weighing motions from each side: Renfroe wants Acker to find in the company’s favor without a trial; the Rigsbys are asking that he dismiss the case.
Unless the Rigsbys pay the $65,000, Acker said, he may rule against their motion for dismissal. …
I’m not saying they don’t deserve it, but boy howdy, the image this brings to mind is a sledgehammer poised over a couple of flies — as a yellowjacket buzzes just out of the picture.
How can you not say this is undeserved?
This lunatic thinks that if the Rigsby sisters’ allegations of fraud are proven true that Renfroe deserves the bounty? What harm has Renfroe suffered from the Rigsbys?
Everything they have said about the way State Farm handled claims has turned out to be true.
Here’s my wait a minute– I read Acker’s order. He found Scruggs and the sisters jointly liable for $65k in fees. Scruggs has put up the money to appeal and now Acker is going to let Renfroe collect it twice? Excuse me? There were other dubiousnesses in his order, too. I’ve not time right now to chase this particular rabbit, but this all sounds like Acker is going farther and farther into berserk. I could be wrong– haven’t looked at the docket again.
The Rigsbys do have a real problem with him that is going to bite them, though– he let them off the hook for contempt because they represented they’d given back the documents. The discovery in the SD Miss cases is beginning to look like it’s going to show that was a sham. Acker will have a nice clean clear shot at them if that pans out.
“What harm has Renfroe suffered from the Rigsbys?” Well, Researcher, many would say a whole lot. But you and NMC are right, this order cannot be defended, and the Rigsby sisters have enough problems without piling on. Once they produce documents in Mississippi, Acker is going to be all over them.
State Farm and Renfroe have made a big mistake by overreaching.
One day the facts will be allowed in court. Then, they are going to wish they had cut deals with the deal-cutting lawyers, because at the end of this they are going to face the combination of skilled private litigators and government prosecutors and there are not enough Judge Ackers out there to cover up for them.
Researcher, sounds as if we’ve got three sets of overreachers in this case — both sets of lawyers and the judge. Everyone but the policy-owners needs comeuppance, but so far only the policy-owners have suffered it. A very ugly picture.
Researcher, I actually agree with you about the overreaching. In litigation sometimes, there comes a point where people become so flush with their good luck and a string of favorable rulings that they abandon all good sense and just keep on plowing further ahead, when the smart move would be to declare victory, wrap things up as quickly as possible and head home. I don’t think State Farm is the only one who has suffered from this affliction in the hurricane litigation, but they are starting to develop a bad case of it at this point.
Do you think he will seize the house and turn it over to the KKK?
NMC – Acker now wants $130,000??
It appears Dickie has dropped the Twisted Sisters for no longer being useful to him. Surpise, surprise. It also appears (going by the Anita Lee story, not a copy of the actual order — can you get us a link to the order, Lotus?) that if the Sisters pay the $65,000 Dickie will be off the hook and entitled to return of his deposit (you can only collect a judgment like this up to the $65,00o amount — you can’t double up) so crafty Dickie gets a win-win, he appears to be honoring his verbal indemnity, but his appeal enables him to avoid paying it altogether if the Twisted Sisters have to pay first. What a clever man. Dishonest, disloyal, but clever. And the Twisted Sisters appear to be no longer “his” clients (remember the two hats?), so he’s not even obligated to inform them of this ruse. Renfroe hasn’t “collected it” if it’s only on deposit with the clerk.
I just went and read the docket in the case in front of Judge Acker and am now totally confused. The last order he entered was in late June, and was widely reported. I don’t see anything in the case since; I really don’t know what this report from the Sun-Herald is about.
I don’t see any indication on the docket that the Rigsbys are left “hanging out there” after Scruggs put up the $65K for the appeal, and wonder what basis there is for this report in the Sun-Herald.
Anyone have a clue?
I just got an email that makes me wonder what went wrong with my Pacer queries a couple of hours ago. Bear with me. I did “date qualified” searches (you folks would not believe the level of my Pacer bill) and they may have mislead me. More later.
NMC, have you read Acker’s order? It appears Dickie appealed and didn’t bother to include the Twisted Sisters in his appeal, or to make them beneficiaries of the $65,000 he posted with the clerk. Why wouldn’t Dickie include them in his appeal? They appear to be getting the “dropped like a used condom” treatment from Dickie. Did Dickie appeal just for himself and leave them in the lurch? Did he not use the same $65,000 for them or did he selfishly designate it as protective of him and his appeal only? Does your pacer research show him ever withdrawing as counsel for them (I know he said in a deposition that he was wearing “two hats” and that one of them was as counsel for them.
His lawyers– Keker’s firm– did the appeal on their own. I’m not sure I could fault them, because their client is Scruggs and no one else. OTOH, how quickly will they burn the $65,000 they posted as an appeal bond? Surely Keker and his firm will use that up in an 11th circuit appeal (and then some)
I had some sort of problem with pacer trying to look at all of this in the afternoon. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, Pacer was only showing me orders and pleadings before 7/1 in the Alabama case and I’m not fully sure why.
Are you saying that after Dickie identified himself as counsel for the Twisted Sisters in the case in front of Acker that he let the time run for appealing on their behalf, even as he allowed Keker to protect his own hide? Is Anita Lee right when she says that this leaves the joint defendant Twisted Sisters open to collection on the judgment because nobody gave enough of a damn about them to include them in the same protection that Dickie afforded himself? If so, how long before they wake up and sue him? Don’t you suspect Dickie will be hearing from Ma Lobrano on this if he’s taking her calls? I know he appears to care more about P L Blake than he does about Zach, but I believe he’s making a tactical error if he thinks Ma Lobrano cares more about him than she does her own two daughters.
I’m not sure Anita Lee is right. That’s about all I can say without studying this more than I have time to right now.
Understood and thanks, NMC. If you get a link to the order, please include it here. If what Anita Lee says is right, I suspect Dickie will be safer in prison than walking free on Mississippi streets that include alleys where the the Twisted Sisters and Ma Lobrano may be lurking with settling old scores and getting overdue revenge in their hearts. They might just make Lawyer Jones and his disgruntled ilk look like choirboys — harmless as milk fed puppies.
Do the Rigsby sisters have any counsel still left standing in the Renfroe case? If Dickie ever appeared on their behalf (I can’t remember if he did), he has been suspended and can’t practice, irrespective of whether he withdrew from the case. I know the Zuckerman lawyers withdrew, and are now being sued by Dickie over fees. Was there anybody who was actually counsel for them that could have filed an appeal? I would find it strange if Acker let Zuckerman withdraw without replacement counsel being on board. Were the Trailer lawyers in this case for them?
CG:
Dickie did not appear on their behalf. They have an Bmghm firm still appearing for them. Not the KC lawyers
ThirdSouth@9 describing Dickie $cruggs:
“What a clever man. Dishonest, disloyal, but clever.”
But didn’t the letters of Chancellor Khayat and Dean Davis to Judge Biggers describe Dickie as loyal and honest?
I went back and looked up the notice submitted to the court by the US Attorney regarding the Rigsby qui tam case. I don’t think we properly noted at the time or since that the DOJ said that its investigation would continue and that any attempt to dismiss or settle the case would need the consent of the DOJ.
This notice was submitted January 31, 2008.
“The Government’s investigation has not been completed, as certain potentially relevant information has not become available. As such, the United States is not able to decide, as of the Court’s deadline, whether to proceed with the action. Accordingly, the United States hereby notifies the Court that it is not intervening at this time.
“However, under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(c)(3), the United States retains the right to intervene in this case at any time ‘upon a showing of good cause,’ and the Government’s investigation of and attention to this case will continue.
“Although the United States is not intervening at this time, it respectfully refers the Court to 31 U.S.C. § 3730(b)(1), which allows the relators to maintain the action in the name of the United States; providing, however, that the ‘action may be dismissed only if the court and the Attorney General give written consent to the dismissal and their reasons for consenting.’
“Therefore, the United States requests that, should either the relators or the defendants propose that this action be dismissed, settled, or otherwise discontinued, this Court solicit the written consent of the United States before ruling or granting its approval.”
JEFFREY S. BUCHOLTZ
Acting Assistant Attorney General
DUNN O. LAMPTON
United States Attorney
Southern District of Mississippi
/s Al Jernigan
ALFRED B. JERNIGAN, JR.
Chief, Civil Division
FELICIA ADAMS
Assistant United States Attorneys
Jackson, MS
JOYCE R. BRANDA
PATRICIA R. DAVIS
JAY D. MAJORS
Attorneys, Department of Justice
Civil Division
Washington, DC
Has the Government made any further announcements, since January, about its “investigation of and attention to this case” [the qui tam]? Has any reporter asked?
No statement by DOJ since the court required one, but that is not unusual. I received a tip from a reliable source that the investigation is still active.
The Washington Post had a recent story that there is a backlog of about 900 whistleblower cases that are still active at DOJ. I was told by a former DOJ civil fraud lawyer that it is typical to take 3 or 4 years to investigate cases that involve substantial document review, witness interviews, and subpoenas.
Thanks for the update, Researcher. That’s an incredible backlog and a delay of sufficient magnitude to trigger due process concerns.
Rigsby need to individually file motion to Recuse on Acker, and need real legal help desperately. Public Citizen is really their own option. This is real Bullshit to discourage others from ever coming forward again. If Obama wins, many of us will be willing to hand over the real “smoking gun” docs to a fair US attorney who will really investigate this. Otherwise, it will not happen.
I would love to see Acker’s phone records for the last year.
NMC at 15
Is there any clarification on this item? Was the report accurate re Judge Acker’s order on the need for the Rigsbys to pay Renfroe’s $65,000 in legal fees while Scruggs appeals his obligation?