Opinion ID: 4534795
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Dispute and Jones’s First Appeal

Text: ¶7 In 1992 Randall Mackey and Gifford Price formed a professional corporation to conduct their law practice. Their firm has had various names over the years but was known as Mackey Price Thompson & Ostler, P.C., during the period relevant to this case. We refer to it herein as MPTO. ¶8 Two attorneys associated with MPTO, Jeffrey Thompson and Russell Skousen, initiated a Fen-Phen program with MPTO to litigate claims arising from the fallout surrounding the beleaguered weight-loss pill. Jones also worked for MPTO and focused on Fen-Phen cases from 2002 to May 2005. At that time, Jones developed dissociative amnesia, which severely impaired his memory and prevented him from continuing his work. The Fen-Phen cases eventually generated over $1 million in fees for MPTO. After Jones claimed to be entitled to some of the Fen-Phen funds, MPTO deposited the fee checks into its trust account and agreed as a “professional courtesy” to let Jones know if any of the funds were to be distributed. ¶9 Jones sued MPTO over these funds in July 2006, asserting various claims for relief. MPTO distributed the Fen-Phen funds in December of that year, purportedly to avoid incurring large tax liabilities. MPTO paid $328,261 to Thompson and Skousen, $165,000 to Jones, $175,484 each to Mackey and Price, and the rest to other MPTO creditors. Yet Jones maintained that he was entitled to a larger share of the funds. In February 2007, he successfully amended his complaint to add claims for breach of fiduciary duty and fraudulent transfer. ¶10 Jones’s suit against MPTO, Mackey, Price, Thompson, Skousen, and various Thompson and Skousen limited liability companies reached us in 2015. At that time, we affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Jones’s contract claim, as well as his quantum meruit and fraudulent transfer claims against Mackey, Price, Thompson, Skousen, and the LLCs. Jones v. Mackey Price Thompson & 3 JONES v. MACKEY PRICE THOMPSON & OSTLER