CONWAY -- A judge ruled Tuesday that a civil lawsuit alleging a bribery conspiracy involving nursing-home owner Michael Morton and former state Sen. Gilbert Baker should proceed but said he hopes he never sees another case like this one.
In his ruling, Special Circuit Judge David Laser of Jonesboro refused to grant the defendants' motion for dismissal of the lawsuit filed in November by two daughters of Martha Bull, a Perryville woman who died in Morton's Greenbrier nursing home in 2008.
The lawsuit accuses Baker and Morton of conspiring to bribe since-ousted Circuit Judge Michael Maggio in exchange for Maggio lowering a Faulkner County jury's $5.2 million judgment in an earlier negligence lawsuit against the nursing home to $1 million on July 10, 2013.
"This is an unusual case. I hope I never see another one [like it]," Laser said. "It looks to me like a very steep burden here" for the plaintiffs to prove. "Trying to connect all the dots in this case is going to be pretty difficult."
Laser said, however, that he does not believe the lawsuit "is an end run" around Maggio's judgment in the earlier case, as the defendants argued.
Maggio, who is no longer a defendant in the civil case, pleaded guilty in January to a federal bribery charge and awaits sentencing.
Morton and Baker have denied the allegations and have not been charged with a crime.
Neither Morton nor Baker attended the hearing. Bull's daughters, Rosey Perkins and Rhonda Coppak, sat on a front bench in the small courtroom during the pretrial hearing.
Attorney Amy Martin presented the arguments for dismissal on behalf of Morton and Baker. Baker's civil attorney, Richard Watts, did not present a separate argument.
Bud Cummins, Baker's attorney in the federal government's criminal investigation of the allegations, attended the hearing but did not speak.
After the ruling, another attorney for Morton, John Everett, told the court that he plans to file a motion seeking a change of venue -- a statement that clearly surprised Laser, who said, "There's not a whole lot" of changes of venue in civil cases.
Everett did not say where he wants the trial to take place nor why he wants it moved.
Morton spokesman Matt DeCample, who attended the hearing, said later that he could not comment on either point until the motion has been filed.
Maggio was a judge in the 20th Judicial Circuit from 2000 to Sept. 11, 2014, when the Arkansas Supreme Court ordered him removed from office for "misconduct" in unrelated matters relating in part to contentious online comments he made. That circuit includes Faulkner, Van Buren and Searcy counties.
Laser to was appointed to hear the current lawsuit after all of the judges in the 20th Circuit recused.
Attorney Thomas Buchanan, who represents Bull's daughters, said later that he will oppose moving the case out of Faulkner County.
"This venue is proper because this is where a lot of the criminal activity occurred," Buchanan said.
"The publicity has been statewide, not countywide," he added.
Morton's attorneys have noted that the Bull family chose to accept Maggio's reduction of the judgment in 2013.
But during arguments Tuesday, Laser asked Martin whether there was any evidence that Bull's family knew at the time about the events to which Maggio has since admitted guilt.
There is not, Martin replied.
Martin argued that the plaintiffs should not be suing Morton and Baker and should instead seek relief under the Arkansas Rules of Civil Procedure if they believe Maggio's ruling in the negligence lawsuit was improper or based on fraud. She also contended the judgment was "valid," noting, "It was paid."
Laser noted that neither Baker nor Morton was a defendant when that earlier case went to trial and that the current lawsuit is based on bribery, not fraud, allegations.
Further, Laser said, "The judge [Maggio] wasn't blindsided" in the case he presided over. "He did exactly what he was told to do," based on the allegations and Maggio's plea agreement with the U.S. attorney's office.
Morton originally was a defendant in the earlier negligence lawsuit, but Maggio removed Morton from the case before it went to trial. Martin noted that Morton owned the nursing home that had to pay the judgment, though.
That remark prompted Buchanan to tell the judge that typically Morton tries to distance himself from the nursing homes he owns when they're sued but now is trying to connect with this one.
Also Tuesday, Laser said he would like to have another hearing about Dec. 15 and said that, if the case progresses as he hopes, the trial could be held in the first quarter of 2016.
State Desk on 05/20/2015