Insurance defense lawyer spars with plaintiff & opposing counsel
An insurer's attorney is accused of making unprofessional comments and attacking opposing counsel during a testy litigation.
The Florida Bar has accused an insurance defense attorney of misconduct over a testy deposition and litigation during which a judge had to “resort to a discipline strategy typically reserved to parents separating bickering siblings,” according to a complaint filed last Wednesday.
The bar alleges that Curtis Lee Allen of Butler Weihmuller Katz Craig in Tampa violated five ethics rules, governing misconduct, respect for the rights of third parties, and fairness to opposing counsel, while the attorney worked defending Avatar Property and Casualty Insurance Co. in two cases.
Allen and Brett Preston — the attorney defending him in the ethics case — did not respond to a request for comment by deadline. The bar is yet to prove its allegations to the Florida Supreme Court, which has jurisdiction over discipline cases.
The first incident involved a 2017 video deposition of Pinellas County plaintiff Abel Alamo that ended with him voluntarily dismissing his complaint without prejudice. Avatar had alleged the insurance claim was fraudulent, according to the bar’s complaint, which said Allen warned the plaintiff he knew the presiding judge and insinuated that the judge would throw him in jail for lying.
The complaint described Allen’s tone as “aggressive and intimidating” and alleged the attorney only threatened criminal charges to gain an advantage in the case, as his questioning “served no substantial purpose other than to intimidate, embarrass and humiliate the witness.”
The bar also accused Allen of making unprofessional comments to Alamo’s attorneys Clifford Wells and Jason Herman of Herman & Wells in Pinellas Park in response to their objections during the deposition.
According to transcripts submitted by the bar, Allen said to Wells, ”I’ll call the judge, and I’ll have your rear end sanctioned for this. We do not do speaking objections. Understand?” And when Herman instructed his client not to answer a question about finances, Allen reportedly said, ”By the way, did you enjoy writing the response to the motion to dismiss? I hope you did.”
Wells and Herman did not respond to requests for comment by deadline.
In a second case, Pasco Circuit Judge Gregory Groger sanctioned Allen and Avatar for failing to properly communicate after the plaintiff accidentally copied him on a confidential email. The bar’s complaint said the plaintiff’s lawyer had to file a motion and seek a hearing over the email because Allen didn’t respond to requests to confirm that it had been deleted.
The judge awarded the plaintiff $495 reimbursement in attorney fees after another lawyer appeared at the hearing on Allen’s behalf and said the email had been erased, but couldn’t explain why opposing counsel wasn’t informed, according to the complaint.
The complaint doesn’t name the plaintiff’s attorney by name, but Tampa lawyer David Pettinato is listed as counsel in online case files. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
‘The animosity is palpable’
Tensions escalated a few months later, the way the bar tells it, as Groger entered orders prohibiting unprofessional conduct between attorneys on both sides and setting monthly case management conferences to avoid delays.
One order said it was “an understatement” to say the litigation had been hotly contested and remarked “the animosity is palpable,” according to transcripts attached to the complaint.
“Unfortunately, the aggressive advocacy of the attorneys of record has not been rooted in the zealous representation of their respective clients, but rather flows from a clear disdain counsel have for each other,” Groger’s order said. ”The manner in which counsel for both the plaintiff and defendant have conducted themselves, in this case, fails to uphold the ideals of the profession, and has been quite simply, childish.”
Groger also found Allen used multiple pleadings to personally attack opposing counsel, according to the bar’s complaint, which said the judge had to prohibit the lawyers from speaking to each other during an evidentiary hearing.
After reviewing hours of video depositions and transcripts, Groger found, “The conflict between respondent and opposing counsel was an ever-present cloud that erupted with nearly every objection,” and said the resulting delays and inconveniences to third parties were “simply collateral damage in the attorneys’ game of one-upmanship” in a February ruling on attorney fees and costs.
Allen is yet to file a response. He was admitted to the bar in 1994 and has no prior discipline history, according to his bar profile.
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