Guy v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government

624 F. App'x 922
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
DecidedAugust 20, 2015
Docket14-5496, 14-5501
StatusUnpublished
Cited by13 cases

This text of 624 F. App'x 922 (Guy v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Guy v. Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, 624 F. App'x 922 (6th Cir. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

BOGGS, Circuit Judge.

These two appeals, which we consider together, both ultimately derive from the sexual abuse of children by Ronald Berry, a sometime-employee of the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government (LFUCG) and founder of a non-profit summer program that LFUCG funded in part. Some of those children sued LFUCG and its officers on a variety of theories. The plaintiffs’ lawyers disputed fees, and some of the lawyers appeal the district court’s quashing of the attorney’s lien they placed on certain settlement proceeds. On the merits, the district court denied a number of plaintiffs’ motions and granted defendants’ motions for summary judgment on a variety of plaintiffs’ claims. The plaintiffs appeal these grants of summary judgment. We affirm each judgment of the district court for the reasons that follow.

I

Ronald Berry served as the executive director of Micro-City Government (MCG), “a nonprofit community service program providing activities for inner-city youth.” Berry v. Commonwealth, 84 S.W.3d 82, 84 (Ky.Ct.App.2001). Berry used his position in MCG to meet boys, whom he later raped. 1 He was convicted of twelve counts of sodomy in the third degree and was sentenced to three years of imprisonment on each count, with all sentences to run concurrently. Ibid. Following Berry’s indictment, victims of Berry’s abuse filed civil suits, including this one, which has led to several appeals. “Plaintiffs allege that Berry abused minors over the period of 1969 to 1996. LFUCG and various numbers of its officials have been the target of several class actions by” putative classes. Guy v. Lexington-Fayette Urban Cnty. Gov’t, 488 Fed.Appx. 9, *925 11 (6th Cir.2012). As we recently explained:

On October 15, 1998, four victims (Keith Guy Sr., Barry Demus Jr., Octavius Gillis, and Christopher Williams) ... filed [a] putative class action.... The complaint named only LFUCG as a defendant. The named plaintiffs, with the exception of Guy, settled in 2000, prior to any ruling on class certification. Two additional victims, Craig Johnson and David Jones, then moved the court to provide notice of the dismissal to the putative class pursuant to' Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 28(e). The district court denied that motion, reasoning that the lawsuit had brought so much publicity that anyone who was going to come forward to join the suit would have already done so. Within two years of the ruling, however, nearly 100 class members came forward. Guy, Johnson, and Jones appealed. Johnson and Jones settled, leaving Guy as the sole named plaintiff appealing the denial of Rule 28(e) notice.

Guy, 488 Fed.Appx. at 11-12.

Additional civil suits were filed by plaintiffs alleging that Berry abused them. On March 3, 2000, attorney Gayle Slaughter entered an appearance in district court, on behalf of certain plaintiffs, with whom she had entered into a contingency-fee agreement. Later that year, Slaughter and her colleague William L. Huffman, “solicited-the involvement of Lexington attorneys Sharon and James Morris,” who constitute the law firm Morris & Morris (“M & M”; “Morrises”). Memo. Op. and,Order (Jan. 29, 2014), at 2. The two pairs of lawyers— Slaughter and Huffman, and the Mor-rises — “never memorialized, or indeed ever reached, a meeting of the minds as to the financial terms of their • collaboration. From 2000 forward, the Slaughter/Huffman group and the Morrises all worked on behalf of the proposed class in various capacities.” Id. at 3. In an earlier opinion, we described the next steps in the litigation as follows:

On May 3, 2000, a second class action was filed by Johnson, Jones, and seven John Does, naming LFUCG and ten former LFUCG officials as defendants. Doe v. LFUCG, No. 00-166-KSF (.Doe I). Two years later, the named plaintiffs settled and Doe I was dismissed. Rule 23(e) notice was neither requested nor given to putative class members.
On May 5, 2005, in a consolidated appeal .,.-, the Sixth Circuit vacated the judgment in Guy. Doe v. Lexington-Fayette Urban Cnty. Gov’t, 407 F.3d 755, 764 (6th Cir.2005), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 1094, 126 S.Ct. 1069, 163 L.Ed.2d 862 (2006). The court decided that the district court abused its discretion by refusing to provide Rule 23(e) notice to absent class members in Guy and Doe I.

Guy, 488 Fed.Appx. at 12 (6th Cir.2012) (footnotes omitted). “In the meantime,” as the district court recently explained,

tensions had developed between Slaughter/Huffman and the Morrises regarding their respective roles in the litigation. Letters detailing these tensions were exchanged during the summer of 2006, and numerous vituperative motions were filed containing accusations of misconduct on both sides. In particular, Slaughter contended that the Morrises had been dealing directly with her clients and attempting to “steal” them.
On July 13, 2006, Slaughter sent a letter to the Morrises stating that she was “dischargefing] your firm from service to us in your capacity as' lead co-counsel” in the case. Slaughter further stated, “It is in the best interest of my and Larry’s clients (the John and Jane Does 1-95) that you submit your final *926 hourly bill to us for services rendered and costs to date, for payment in the event that we prevail and recover damages.”
On September 25, 2006, attorney Barbara Bonar, who by then had become associated as co-counsel with Slaughter and Huffman, wrote a letter to the Mor-rises. This letter came on the heels of apparent attempts by Bonar to mediate, informally, the dispute between Slaughter and the Morrises. In the letter, Bonar noted that Jim Morris had informed her that the Morrises were withdrawing from the case, and she stated: “Gayle Slaughter and Larry Huffman acknowledge that you performed significant legal services for the case (the 1011 hours you submitted) for which you should be compensated.”
On November 17, 2006, the [district cjourt held a status conference to address this dispute, as well as other issues. As a result of discussions at the conference, the Court directed that each set of attorneys — the Morrises on one side and Slaughter/Huffinan on the other — consult with the individual plaintiffs and ask them to choose which attorneys they wished to represent them, and that each side would execute retainer agreements with their clients.
In its Order following the hearing, the Court directed that one set of plaintiffs would be denominated the “Does,” represented by the Morrises, and that Slaughter and Huffman’s clients would be called the “Roes.”

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Bluebook (online)
624 F. App'x 922, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/guy-v-lexington-fayette-urban-county-government-ca6-2015.