Opinion ID: 1952834
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Facts of representation

Text: In August 1994, Julia Mae Shiggs (Shiggs), a 34 year old woman, was admitted to Savannah's Memorial Medical Center (the hospital) to give birth to her fourth child. Ms. Shiggs experienced complications during a Caesarian section and slipped into a coma from which she never awoke. [6] SMR2 [Special Master's Report]. Shortly thereafter, Michael Mydell (Mydell), Ms. Shiggs' common-law husband, contacted Roberson to file a medical malpractice suit on behalf of Ms. Shiggs and a loss of consortium claim for himself. Special Master Report (SMR) 2-3. [7] An Authority to Represent agreement (the fee agreement) was executed on September 28, 1994, in which Mydell retained the services of Roberson for a 40% contingent fee. Roberson, in November 1995, with the permission of Mydell, hired John Thomas Woodall (Woodall), another experienced trial attorney to assist with the litigation. However, Roberson and Woodall did not execute a written agreement as to attorney's fees. Instead, they had a gentleman's agreement according to Roberson and shook hands. SMR 5. Woodall, it was understood, would have no personal contact with Roberson's clients and would receive instructions only from Roberson. Roberson and Woodall filed suit on April 14, 1995 and alleged counts for medical malpractice and loss of consortium. SMR 5. However, in September 1995, Roberson informed Mydell that the case expenses were escalating and he needed to contribute $10,000 to the costs of prosecuting the claims. SMR 6. Mydell and Roberson then agreed to amend their Fee Agreement when Mydell could not pay the $10,000. SMR 6. The new contract between Mydell and Roberson on September 1, 1995, required that Roberson receive 50% of the proceeds of any recovery in the case. SMR 6. On the eve of trial after learning that Mydell had impregnated another women while his wife was still in a coma, Roberson decided that the loss of consortium claim could adversely impact Ms. Shiggs' medical malpractice claim. Mydell subsequently agreed to dismiss his loss of consortium claim after discussing this matter with Roberson. SMR 7. The trial began on January 16, 1996, and ended after six (6) days with a settlement agreement on January 22, 1996. The settlement agreement consisted of a collective cash payment of $3, 325,000 to be paid by defendants within 72 hours to Roberson for Ms. Shiggs' benefit. Importantly, the settlement agreement involved the participation of trial judge Gregory Fowler: Roberson agreed that court approval of any valuation [of services provided in addition to the monetary payments] would be necessary. SMR10 & 12; emphasis in original. Also, as part of the settlement agreement, the defendants insisted that Mydell's and all Ms. Shiggs' four children's inchoate wrongful death claims be released. SMR 14. Despite Mydell's stated misgivings and refusal to participate, Roberson agreed and arranged the releases of the children's claims, obtaining the local Probate Court's approval for this in July 1996. SMR 14-15. Further supplementing the monetary aspects of the settlement agreement, the hospital agreed to provide certain future medical services to Ms. Shiggs. SMR 12. This would include all aspects of Ms. Shiggs' care, including certain daily respiratory therapy & treatment. A value of these future services was required, in part, for the purpose of determining attorneys' fees. SMR 12. The value of future servicesof respiratory treatment onlyhad been calculated for trial by Dr. Bart to be $1,091,909, based on the present value of seven year's worth of respiratory expenses. SMR 13. [8] This information was provided on January 23, 1996, by Woodall [9] to Roberson. Roberson, nevertheless, valued the future medical services in his submission to the trial court at $1,425,000, using this figure in the Settlement Statement which he presented to Mydell and filed with the Court. SMR 13-14. [10] Later in August 1996, when Roberson was asked for his documentation of the $1,425,000 figure, Roberson: a) told Woodall that he (Roberson) had lost the papers with the $1,425,000 figure; b) contended that $1,425,000, not $1,091,909, was the figure that Woodall supplied and c) suggested to the trial judge that the pages may have been switched without his consent. SMR 13, 30 and 33. To the contrary, Woodall testified, as to the August conversation with Roberson, This is the first time in my life I had heard of $1,425,000. I knew that I had only faxed him on January whatever it was in 1996, I had only faxed him a figure for respiratory therapy that was $1,091,000, and I did not know what the difference was either. SMR 30. Woodall got the impression from talking with Roberson that Roberson received the increased figure directly from Dr. Bart; however, when Woodall asked her, Dr. Bart informed Woodall that she had no other calculations and had done none for Roberson directly. SMR 31. Knowing that the larger figure was necessary to justify the amount of attorney's fees already distributed from the settlement proceeds, Woodall [11] on behalf of himself and Roberson asked Dr. Bart to sign an affidavit which made up the approximately $300,000 difference between the future medical care figures by assuming the need for additional hospital stays, if she was comfortable with this. SMR 31. The Special Master also considered testimony as to the source of the $1,425,000 calculation from Karen Alston, a paralegal formally employed by Roberson. However, he rejected Ms. Alston's testimony as inconsistent and containing too many memory gaps. For example, Alston testified both 1) that Roberson was her source of the $1,425,000 figure, which he wrote for her on a scrap of paper and 2) that Woodall was her source of the figure, which he had to tell her how to write. SMR 13-14, note 7. Roberson complains that the Special Master found it more likely that the increase between the $1,091,909 future medical bill and the $1,425,000 was added on by Roberson, arguing that this phrase indicates the Master applied a mere preponderance standard of proof rather than the more stringent and legally required clear and convincing standard. SMR 13. However, the undersigned finds that the more likely reference has been taken out of context and misconstrued. In context, the undersigned finds that Special Master infelicitously used this phrase simply to indicate that he gave no credibility to Roberson's alternate explanations of how the $300,000 discrepancy arose. Upon summarizing the entirety of the evidence on this point, it is plain that the Special Master found clear and convincing evidence that Roberson had violated professional standards by maintaining dishonest, fraudulent, and deceitful records of the settlement ... which contained willful misrepresentations. SMR 38-42. Notably, the Georgia Review Panel approved the Special Master's report, excepting and disagreeing that the evidence on this point was simply more likely; instead, the Review Panel found the evidence is clear and convincing that Respondent Roberson increased the amount of future medical services from $1,091,000 to $1,425,000 in order to enlarge the amount of attorneys' fees claimed.... Joint Exhibit B, p.727. The Georgia Supreme Court in its per curiam opinion, affirmed the Review Board's clear and convincing evidence finding and made no reference to the Special Master's more likely language. Joint Exhibit C.