Lawyers go to war over client files
There’s nothing like a fight between lawyers. You’re talking big egos and just enough smarts to pose a serious danger to themselves and those around them.
And when the battle is over clients, whoo boy, it’s time for children and the faint of heart to avert their eyes.
Today’s tale of woe involves two Tampa Bay attorneys who engaged in a battle royale, the facts of which “are enough to make any legal ethics professor cringe.”
At least that’s how Judge Craig Villanti described it in a decision issued at the end of last month by the Florida Court of Appeal.
Smash and grab
William Winters worked for over 15 years as an associate at Richard Mulholland’s law firm.
One Friday in June 2001, Winters packed up certain client files and left for the weekend.
Winters never returned to work. Instead, the following Monday he called Mulholland’s office manager and told him that a letter of resignation was on his desk.
Okay, so right now we know that this was not exactly the most amicable of partings.
Sure, Mulholland was probably saddened not to have Winters’ sunny disposition brightening up the office any more. But what about those missing client files?
Mulholland claimed that Winters had been sneakily planning his exit for months.
According to Mulholland, in the months leading up to his departure, Winters cherry picked choice clients he wanted to try to take with him when he left the firm. Mulholland alleged that Winters removed at least one client file from Mulholland’s office and copied it before returning it. He kept other client files with him.
And the story gets juicier.
There are the alleged antics of Elizabeth Chapa, a former paralegal at the Mulholland firm.
The court describes Chapa as Winters’ “paramour.” According to Mulholland, Chapa hacked into the firm’s computer system and altered client contact data in an effort make it more difficult for Mulholland to contact clients Winters had designs on.
Whoa!
Mulholland was evidently blindsided when Winters bolted, probably thinking he and Winters were best of buds, breaking bread together, mi casa es su casa, and all that.
When he found out about the client files, Mulholland was even more flabbergasted.
Mulholland demanded that Winters hand over the files, but Winters gave him the raspberries and told Mulholland that he would have to sue him to get them.
Putting a cherry on top, Winters allegedly boasted that as part of his scheme he told clients that Mulholland was retiring and no one would be available to handle their cases.
When Mulholland pointed out that he wasn’t going anywhere, Winters allegedly replied, “I know it, but they don’t.”
The upshot of the whole deal was that Mulholland lost twelve of his most lucrative clients.
Catch me if you can
So Mulholland filed for a writ of replevin to get his client files back.
Winters ultimately returned the files — allegedly without some key documents — but none of the twelve clients who left with Winters ever returned to Mulholland’s firm.
Next, Mulholland sued Winters for everything under the sun: civil RICO, federal RICO, civil theft, conversion, intentional interference with business relationships, etc.
But the only claim that ultimately made it before a jury was a claim for civil theft under Florida law, which offered the chance for treble damages.
And was Mulholland thrilled with the outcome.
The jury awarded Mulholland $748,502.90 in damages and $130,500 in attorney fees.
The trial court remitted the damages award to $383,105, but then trebled it to $1,149,315 pursuant to the civil theft statute, giving Mulholland a grand total of $1,470,453.
But Mulholland’s Snoopy Dance came to end Jan. 29 of this year when the Florida Court of Appeal decided that judgment should be entered for Winters.
You see, the court concluded that Mulholland failed to present evidence to prove that the theft of his client files was connected to the loss of his clients and, therefore, resulted in any damages.
“Mulholland presented no evidence that any client chose to leave Mulholland and go with Winters because Winters had a copy of their file,” the court explained. “While Winters may have made unauthorized use of Mulholland’s paper files, in the absence of some evidence that Mulholland was injured by Winters’ having taken and copied these files, the evidence is insufficient to support a judgment for civil theft.”
What about the alleged hacking of Mulholland’s computers by Winters’ paramour?
Well, let’s just say that the court was unimpressed with Mulholland’s evidence that that caper caused him harm.
“[W]hile the alterations to the client information in the computer system may have affected Mulholland’s ability to contact his clients, no client testified that he or she left Mulholland and went with Winters because Mulholland never contacted them,” the court said.
And that fib about Mulholland retiring didn’t amount to much either, according to the court.
“Mulholland did not call a single client to testify that he or she was told by Winters that Mulholland was retiring and that he or she would have stayed with Mulholland knowing otherwise,” the court said. “Thus, Mulholland presented no evidence to establish that Winters’ behavior supporting the finding of ‘theft,’ loathsome as it might have been, actually caused any of the clients to leave Mulholland, resulting in his loss of the right to the fees.” (Winters v. Mulholland)
What a bitter pill for Mulholland to swallow.
He loses a large chunk of his business due to the alleged connivance of an associate in his firm. And we can safely surmise that he had trouble getting his erstwhile clients to testify in support of his claim of civil theft, so he loses his court case against Winters as well.
Where’s the justice in that?
— Pat Murphy
patrick.murphy@lawyersusaonline.com
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