The Eleventh Circuit has vindicated Dickie Scruggs in the civil contempt case, finally ending the Rigsby/North Alabama mess. The decision lays out the facts and law as clearly as anything to date. The holdings are:
- Dickie Scruggs was in no sense before the court in Alabama and the court had no jurisdiction over him when he handed off the documents to Jim Hood. His status as the Rigsby’s lawyer did not make him before Judge Aker because he’d not appeared in the case before Aker.
- While one who aids and abets civil contempt can be in civil contempt himself without being before the court, Scruggs’s conduct was not sufficient for him to have aided and abetted contempt. First, the Rigsbys did not have the documents and therefore were not in contempt for failing to hand them over. Since they did were not in contempt, Scruggs could not be said to have aided and abetted their contempt. What Judge Acker was doing, the Court ruled, was treating Scruggs as a principal (there was no one else on the scene accused of contempt) while saying he was aiding and abetting.
This all makes perfect sense to me.
One thing that is interesting about the holding is that it answers a question I asked about the TRO Judge Coleman granted in the Pickering case: How can Judge Coleman enjoin a lawyer (Mrs. Pickering’s former lawyer in the Madison chancery case) who is not before him? The 11th Circuit says that, at least in the 11th Circuit, he couldn’t. I would think that would also be the answer in state courts in Mississippi.
Does this vindicate Scruggs’s handling of the Rigsbys? I think not, given Judge Senter’s eventual order that Scruggs’s handling of the Rigsbys required him and every lawyer in his vicinity to be disqualified. It does reduce the number of open questions by one (relatively large) one, though. Probably the biggest one remaining for me in this area is the question of why Judge Senter changed his mind between his first and second rulings on whether the handling of the Rigsby’s required disqualification. As I said long ago (it seems long ago) on another blog, I can’t understand what changed between ruling one (when it was already clear that the Rigsbys were paid consultants, etc.) and ruling number two (when that was the basis for the disqualification of everyone connected to SKG).
Here’s the 11th Circuit Scruggs Contempt Reversal.
Thanks — lots to think about, and I need to see what Anderson of Yesteryear thought about all this ….
the chancery court issued an injunction compelling Mrs. Pickering’s former attorney to turn the documents over to Mr. Pickering’s attorneys. Before the prior attorney did so Mrs. Pickering’s new attorneys filed a petition in the cicuit court for an order compelling her not to. all kinds of problems with that.
I said this on a prior post. the easiest remedy would have been for mcrae to ask the circuit court to issue a TRO against Chip’s attorneys compelling them to preserve the documents once they were turned over to them.
unless you think an attorney is going to violate a direct court order, this solves the problem of two courts ordering Mrs. Pickering’s former attorney from doing 2 different things.
A judge can impose a TRO against anyone, whether they’ve been served or not. Personal jurisdiction is the only question. But it only lasts a limited time. Before it can become permanent, the party must receive notice and a full hearing.
This is apples to oranges. In the Scruggs case, he was held in contempt for failing to follow a Court order. He was not an attorney nor a party in the case, so the order had no affect on him.
If, on the other hand, someone had sought a TRO against him, he’d most certainly be a party to the case. Whether an Alabama Court had personal jurisdiction would be an interesting question.
In my opinion, the Alabama suit against the Rigsbys via Scruggs was a carefully orchestrated selective prosecution, written and directed by State Farm and Renfroe. Birmingham, wing nut epicenter of selective prosecution, was the perfect venue as SF has a huge divisional office there, and it’s Renfroe’s home town. Instant coining of the phrase “stolen documents” caught on so fast no one even bothered to ask whether records proving flood program fraud (a federal crime) can ever be “trade secrets” protected under the so-called “Alabama Trade Secrets Act,” or moreover, characterized as “stolen documents.” (Documents evidencing flood program fraud have no proprietary privilege or confidentiality under state or federal law, and can’t be “stolen”).
Everybody, insiders in the Ms Ins. Comm. hiding years of corporate collusion, biased judges and law clerks with insidious political agendas and unethical ins. defense lawyers, all fueled by SF’s high octane propaganda machine, got in on the feeding frenzy. One obscure West Coast lawyer ala “journalist,” a neophyte attorney who wouldn’t know a hurricane loss if it bit his private parts off, re-invented himself and rising from obscurity, became an instantaneous media darling by blathering seductive phrases like “Scruggsnation.” Self-ordained insurance expert, he parlayed a campaign of corporate sponsored Scruggs bashing into a new career, and presto-chango, like the ancient theory of “spontaneous generation,” he’s suddenly a law scholar. No one even bothered to ask how many new insurance defense cases flowed into his relatively small defense firm while he relentlessly bashed Scruggs and Katrina policyholders to the cued beat of SF’s drum. Even the 5th Cir. at one point bought into the cacophony. Finally, Alabama US Attorney Alice Martin and a truly “Honorable” US Dist. Judge, Judge Roger Vinson of Penascola, turned a water hose on the pathologic frenzy. Now, years later, the 11th Cir. nails Judge William Acker’s door shut and removes him from the case. The madness is finally over . . . much, much, much too late and after massive collateral damage. Here’s a novel suggestion, why not apply the “honest services” doctine to judges, law clerks and whole court staffs? (Sen. Leahy has tried since 2006 to get a bill making honest services apply to members of Congress who deprive American citizens of honest service in the performance of their sworn duties). Postscript disclaimer: nothing said here is meant to excuse or exonerate Dick Scruggs from his obvious and admitted wrongs.
[...] No jurisdiction: Eleventh Circuit overturns contempt finding against Scruggs in Rigsby case [Freeland] [...]