Demcyzk v. Lesh, Casner & Miller, L.P.A. (In Re Kirkpatrick)

254 B.R. 378, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14279, 2000 WL 1482880
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedSeptember 28, 2000
Docket98-63731
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 254 B.R. 378 (Demcyzk v. Lesh, Casner & Miller, L.P.A. (In Re Kirkpatrick)) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Demcyzk v. Lesh, Casner & Miller, L.P.A. (In Re Kirkpatrick), 254 B.R. 378, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14279, 2000 WL 1482880 (N.D. Ohio 2000).

Opinion

OPINION

GWIN, District Judge.

On September 25, 2000, this case came before the Court for jury trial. At the conclusion of Plaintiff-Trustee Demcyzk’s case, Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller, L.P.A. (“Lesh, Casner & Miller”) moved this Court for judgment as a matter of law, pursuant to Rule 50 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Finding no evidence on which a jury could properly proceed to find a verdict for the plaintiff, the Court grants the motion. 1

I.

In this action, Plaintiff-Trustee Michael Demcyzk asserts two claims against Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller on behalf of Debtors Thomas and Mary Sue Kirkpat-ricks’ bankruptcy estate. First, the plaintiff seeks to recover certain funds the Kirkpatricks allegedly fraudulently transferred to the defendant in partial restitution of the approximately $150,000 their daughter stole from the defendant while in its employ. Second, the plaintiff seeks to recover compensatory and punitive damages for the defendant’s alleged fraud and deceit in inducing the Kirkpatricks to make restitution on behalf of their daughter.

The embezzlement at the core of this action was committed by Kelly Creighton, Mary Sue Kirkpatrick’s daughter from a previous marriage. Creighton served as a bookkeeper with Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller from 1993 to 1996. On or about March 6, 1996, the defendant discovered that Creighton had stolen approximately $150,000 from the firm, including more than $20,000 of client funds held in trust accounts. 2 Upon this discovery, the defendant immediately fired Creighton.

After being fired, Kelly Creighton went to the Kirkpatricks’ home to meet with her mother. At this meeting, Kelly Creighton acknowledged stealing Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller’s funds. Kelly Creighton said she feared going to jail. Mary Sue Kirkpatrick, a former deputy sheriff, also believed her daughter might go to jail.

Almost immediately after being fired, Kelly Creighton hired attorney C. Stephen Ayers to represent her. Attorney Ayers quickly contacted Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller to try to stop criminal prosecution of his client. In contacting the defendant on Kelly Creighton’s behalf, Attorney Ayers indicated that the Kirkpatricks were willing to contribute to the restitution of the funds Creighton had stolen. However, as he explained in a March 7, 1996, letter faxed to the defendant, Attorney Ayers had advised the Kirkpatricks that any fur *381 ther discussion regarding restitution would have to wait until the defendant computed the total amount of embezzled funds:

“Please be advised that I have been retained by the above-captioned individual [Kelly Creighton] with respect to alleged activity while in your employment. I have advised Kelly, her mother and step-father of the fact that there is nothing to discuss with you at this time relating to restitution since you do not have a final figure.” (Emphasis added.)

On March 11, 1996, Attorney Ayers spoke with Jake Hess, the president of Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller. Hess’s contemporaneous notes indicate that Attorney Ayers organized a meeting between the defendant and the Kirkpatricks to discuss restitution:

“Family wants to pay it all back. I [Hess] said, in spite of what Kelley may have told him, we [Lesh, Casner & Miller] have determined its into 6 figures. W/o complete audit, but we have sufficient checks to show [undecipherable]. Family will turn over entire PI. Steve [Ayers] only wants assurance we won’t prosecute. Meeting Tues. p.m. 7:00. Steve will check with family.... Steve suggests meeting at his place — family will be more relaxed than here ...”

These notes reveal that the defendant neither requested the Kirkpatricks’ participation in a restitution plan nor set up the meeting to discuss restitution. Attorney Ayers took the lead in presenting to the defendant the Kirkpatricks’ desire to help their daughter.

On the evening of March 12, 1996, Defendant Lesh, Casner and Miller partners Jake Hess, Dennis Fox and Thomas Lombardi met at Ayers’s office with Attorney Ayers, Kelly Creighton, and the Kirkpat-ricks. Hess attended as the defendant’s president. Lombardi served as the defendant’s vice-president, which gave him responsibility for the firm’s personnel. Fox, a certified public accountant as well as an attorney, supervised the effort to reconstruct the amount of loss caused by Kelly Creighton’s theft.

At this meeting, the Kirkpatricks and Kelly Creighton arrived and spoke with Attorney Ayers before the representatives of Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller arrived. Upon their arrival, Hess, Fox and Lombardi met with Creighton, the Kirk-patricks and Attorney Ayers and distributed documentation of what monies they believed Kelly Creighton had stolen.

After receiving this, the Kirkpatricks and Kelly Creighton left the room to confer separately with Attorney Ayers. Ayers then shuttled between the room occupied by Creighton and the Kirkpatricks and the room occupied by Hess, Fox, and Lombardi. During these discussions, the representatives of Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller had no contact with the Kirkpat-ricks.

Although Attorney Ayers is subject to the subpoena power of this Court, Plaintiff Demcyzk never offered his testimony concerning the discussions he held with the Kirkpatricks, Kelly Creighton and Defendant Lesh, Casner & Miller. 3 However, Attorney Lombardi’s testimony suggests that Attorney Ayers proposed the total amount the Kirkpatricks and Creighton could pay in restitution:

Q How was it decided that $76,000 is what Tom and Sue would be able to pay?
A That would have come from Steve Ayers, after his discussions with Tom and Sue and Kelley.
Q It didn’t come from you?
A No.
Q And there wasn’t any negotiations back and forth about what that number was going to be?
*382 A By back and forth — we talked to Steve Ayers is the only person we talked to.
THE COURT: Let me just ask — did they start off with 75, and you start off higher, they start off lower.
A I can’t recall. What happened was, I’m telling you we went there, we knew we were out about $150,000. At some point in the discussions, we said — they said $115,000, we said, fine. And the rest of the conversations were between Steve Ayers and the Kirkpatricks, figuring out how they — how they could, between the three of them, pay $115,000. This is what they came up with then as far as the — as far as Tom and Sue were going to pay 75 and Kelley would pay the rest of it.
Q So you’re saying there weren’t negotiations back and forth?

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
254 B.R. 378, 2000 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14279, 2000 WL 1482880, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/demcyzk-v-lesh-casner-miller-lpa-in-re-kirkpatrick-ohnd-2000.