Two attorneys hired by Conway in a land-condemnation case did nothing to violate an order by the Arkansas Supreme Court that prohibited them from collecting against a landowner, their attorney told a special master assigned to the case Tuesday.
The contempt case arose from a dispute between Conway Corp., which operates city-owned utilities, and Karen Cooper and Jack Dowell, who are married and live near the site of a proposed airport in Conway. The two were the only landowners who challenged what the group offered for an easement for a waterline leading to the site, in a case that reached the Supreme Court.
On Jan. 31, 2013, Circuit Judge H.G. Foster ordered the couple to pay $21,345 in fees to the attorneys hired by Conway before they could file any more pleadings in the case, citing trial delays they had requested. The Supreme Court later found the order infringed on the couple’s access to the courts, and stayed the lower court proceedings and an attempt to collect on a garnishment of Dowell’s wages while the issue was argued at the high court.
The Supreme Court issued an order Sept. 5 for Gary Jiles and Matthew Brown to appear “to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for violating this court’s order staying any attempt to collect on the garnishment.” The order followed claims in a brief by Kent Walker - Dowell’s attorney - that the garnishment of Dowell’s paycheck was done“on behalf of Millar Jiles LLP.”
Jiles and Brown requested Tuesday’s hearing after pleading innocent to being in contempt of the court’s order.
Philip Kaplan, a Little Rock attorney for Jiles and Brown, told Judge John Plegge that his clients stopped attempting to collect from Dowell after the Supreme Court issued its order.
Plegge was appointed by the court as a special master to gather information on the contempt case and present it to the court.
Kaplan told the judge that there was no evidence that showed the attorneys violated the order, aside from claims made by Walker that their office had been in contact with a company that later garnished Dowell’s wages. Kaplan said that Jiles and Brown would not sign off on a check from a company called Automatic Data Processing and that the $230 garnished from Dowell’s wages was reimbursed.
Automatic Data Processing is based in Roseland, N.J., and provides several business processing services, including human resources and payroll tasks. Both sides said the company was tasked with garnishing wages for Dowell’s employer.
“There is just no proof at all for the Supreme Court or your findings to indicate that Jiles or Brown did anything in violation of the stay order,” Kaplan said.
Walker testified at the hearing that he heard from Automatic Data Processing that Jiles’ firm had contacted the agency about the money and asked that the check be sent to their Conway offices. Handwritten notes, which Kaplan said were taken from call-center workers outside the country, were used at the hearing to show the firm purportedly contacted the collection agency.
Walker’s attorney, Ken McCulloch, asked whether Jiles, who was the lead attorney on the case, contacted Dowell’s employer after the stay to try to prevent the garnishment from going forward.
Jiles testified that his Conway-based firm, Millar Jiles LLP, received notice of the order on the afternoon of March 15, 2013, and was told within days by Walker that Walker had informed Dowell’s employer about the stay. Sending another notice would have been redundant, Jiles said.
Jiles testified that he also called the Faulkner County Circuit Court to cancel a forthcoming hearing on the collection of garnished wages because of the stay order.
Plegge asked Kaplan and McCulloch to submit post-hearing findings of fact for him to review. He said he will then present his findings to the Supreme Court.
Arkansas, Pages 10 on 04/09/2014