Opinion ID: 2809234
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Gammage’s Law Firm Fraud

Text: Gammage was licensed to practice law in the State of Georgia from approximately June 1979 through January 2012. Gammage owned and operated The Gammage Firm in Cedartown, Georgia, where he specialized in workers’ compensation cases and represented people who were seriously injured at work. Gammage took over The Gammage Firm when his father, who founded the firm, passed away. Over the course of The Gammage Firm’s existence, The Gammage Firm had developed an excellent reputation among injured workers. Gammage leveraged the firm’s name, as well as his eloquent speaking ability, to gain clients’ trust. Gammage was a “sweet talking man,” which made it easy for clients to believe him and to believe the good things they had heard about The Gammage Firm. 2 Case: 13-13605 Date Filed: 06/17/2015 Page: 3 of 14 Gammage’s clients were also reassured by Gammage’s special status as a fiduciary. They “trust[ed] in the legal system in this country” and believed Gammage’s fiduciary status required him to “take care of [them] and give them what they were due.” From about January 2008 until January 2012, Gammage defrauded his injured clients out of more than $2 million. He used these stolen funds to enrich himself and to pay his law firm’s payroll and operating expenses. The scheme went as follows: Gammage settled claims on behalf of injured clients without their authorization. Thereafter, Gammage did not notify his injured clients that he had received their settlement checks. Instead, Gammage forged his clients’ names on the settlement checks and deposited those checks into bank accounts he controlled for his own use. Meanwhile, his injured clients—some of whom were disabled or unable to work—struggled to make ends meet. In order to keep the scheme going for four years, Gammage used various tactics that lulled his clients into a false sense of security and delayed their complaints to law enforcement authorities. Gammage refused to provide clients with a full and accurate accounting of their funds and delayed the disbursement of settlement funds as long as possible. When clients called to ask about their settlement money, Gammage would either not return their phone calls or make up excuses and blame others. Gammage told one client “his bank accounts were 3 Case: 13-13605 Date Filed: 06/17/2015 Page: 4 of 14 frozen because of IRS problems.” He told another client “there is some kind of holdup and lots of red tape.” When Gammage’s clients insisted they needed money to pay medical bills, purchase medication, and, in some instances, put food on the table, Gammage provided them partial payments, which he referred to as “advances” and “interestfree loans.”