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(photo, left to right: attorneys Jeff and Dan Boone, the public face of the Boone law firm)
Reached by phone, Miller's attorney, W. Cort Frohlich, stated, "This is as clear a case of legal malpractice as you can get and we are going full steam ahead."
In March of 2008, Community National Bank (since absorbed by Stearns Bank) filed a foreclosure suit against Miller over his interest in some undeveloped commercial land in Sarasota County.
According to Frohlich's complaint, the Boone law firm was hired by Miller to represent him in the foreclosure action. Frohlich writes that the Boone law firm subsequently failed to provide any meaningful or substantive legal services, causing a domino effect of legal and financial failures which, in turn, culminated in the seizure of Miller's thoroughbred horse breeding operation in Kentucky during an advertised horse auction.
According to the complaint, the Boones failed to respond to the initial filing for foreclosure, which allowed Community National to successfully obtain a summary judgment against Miller. This not only gave Miller's land interest to the bank, but also allowed the bank to obtain a money judgment in the amount of $1.99 million with the crucial wording "for all of which let execution issue."
According to the complaint, this, then, gave Community National a huge legal crowbar to go after any and all of Miller's professional and personal assets, which the bank did, starting with Miller's thoroughbred breeding operation in Kentucky, Miller Thoroughbreds, LLC.
Miller, apparently unaware of the Boone law firm's failure to represent him in the first action, re-hired the Boones to represent him in the Kentucky foreclosure action. According to the complaint, Miller was told "that he need not take any action in response to the filing" in Kentucky.
That was a second case of negligence, according to Frohlich, one that shut down Miller's horse breeding business when, unbeknownst to Miller, an advertised auction of thoroughbred horses was taken over by the Jefferson County Court in Kentucky in November of 2008.
According to Frohlich's complaint, the proceeds of the then-upcoming advertised auction were ordered to be deposited with the court. The auction house was served with the seizure notice just days before the auction, and the auction house promptly canceled the auction and terminated Miller Thoroughbred's credit line.
Thanks to the fact that no attorney showed up in court to defend Miller, Community National obtained from the Kentucky courts a second summary money judgment against Miller, this time in the amount of $1.98 million.
Word spread quickly through the equine world, and Miller, according to the complaint, "was forced to sell his stock at severely deflated prices." That, in turn, caused Miller Thoroughbreds to be unable to pay vendors, auction houses, banks, etc., and the company quickly spiraled into bankruptcy.
Frohlich alleges that Miller's economic implosion is all a "direct result and consequence of the negligence of Boone, Koda and [the] Boone law firm. ...None of the above would have occurred, but for the negligence and breach of the professional duty of care by" the Boone firm.
Frohlich writes that "by advising Miller that he need not respond or take any action in response to the filing of the Kentucky Action...," and "by failing to advise Miller that he needed to immediately retain counsel in Kentucky to defend the effort by the bank" to go after his assets there, that the Boones "were further negligent in their legal representation of Miller and further breached their duty of professional care."
The court filing concludes with this statement: "As a direct and proximate result of the negligence of (the Boone firm], and their breach of their professional duty to Miller, Miller has suffered and will continue to suffer damages in the millions of dollars as a result of the impact to him personally as well as to the entities which he owned and invested in."
Reached by phone, Boone law partner Jeff Boone stated "I honestly can't comment on it as I am not the attorney handling this case." Jeff Boone referred all questions to his brother, law partner Stephen Boone, who was not in the office.
While Frohlich writes in the complaint that Miller is seeking damages in excess of $15,000, Frohlich stated by phone that was a necessary minimum amount that needed to be in the legal wording just to get the case into circuit court. Frohlich stated that his client had lost several million dollars and that Miller was seeking compensation for the money that was lost as a result of the Boone law firm's handling of the two cases.
The Boones have until
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Bet they respond to that on time.
ReplyDeleteNice job, JP. Your writing has definitely improved, and this story is worthy of a wider audience than venfl.com.
ReplyDeleteThanks(?), but... that's kind of patronizing, especially when, to quote Truman Capote, "That isn't writing at all, it's typing."
ReplyDeleteThis is inverted pyramid, basic news style writing, a majorly regressive form for the web. I better know how to write like this, it is the basic beginner's style-sheet lesson in news writing where the story writes itself once you know the format. Utterly brainless stuff that eludes at least one local print news "editor."
For a story with this limited kind of content, you have to do it this way instead of my normal magazine story style.
So no, I am not getting better. In this case I am dumbing a story down, a deliberate regression based on the needs of the content of the story, which is basically a summary of (or a book report of sorts on) a single legal filing.