Posner Blasts ‘Out of Control’ Class-Action Lawyer in Fee Fight
A federal appeals court has blasted an Illinois class action lawyer as “out of control” and ordered sanctions for bringing a groundless suit for fees against his former law firm partners.
The lawyer, Rex Carr, “is locked in mortal combat with his former law partners,” but the litigation is groundless, according to the opinion by the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The National Law Journal, the Belleville News-Democrat and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Crime Beat all had stories on the opinion by Judge Richard Posner.
“The plaintiff is out of control and his lawyers are neglecting their duties as officers of the state and federal courts by failing to rein him in,” Posner wrote in an opinion (PDF) that holds the litigation is barred by res judicata and related doctrine. The appeals court upheld dismissal of the suit, and told a trial court to assess sanctions and consider whether to bar additional litigation arising from the matter.
Carr, of East St. Louis, is seeking $20 million in compensatory damages from his former firm, Carr Korein Tillery, now known as Korein Tillery. “This is Carr’s eighth suit against the defendants complaining about the division of fees; a ninth is pending in Missouri; and in at least four other cases that were handled by the law firm before the break up he has filed liens in an attempt to get a bigger share of the fees than the defendants had allotted to him,” the opinion said.
Posner said the federal suit rehashes claims in prior suits filed in 2004 that were resolved by a memorandum of understanding upheld by Illinois courts. The federal suit claimed the earlier wrongful acts were part of a RICO conspiracy, but “a change of legal theory” does not justify relitigating the prior events, he said. And a claim that the memorandum was violated is about breach of contract, not a RICO violation, and in any event the claim was the subject of state-court litigation, he said.
Posner also criticized Carr’s appellate lawyers: Carr’s son, Bruce Carr, and Kirkland & Ellis partner Jonathan Bunge. He said the lawyers wrongly asserted in the opening brief that the suit was not relitigating old issues, and they improperly tried to introduce new issues in the reply brief.
The Carrs and Bunge declined to comment to the National Law Journal.
