Archives > Celina Record > News
Print
E-mail
Comment
Rate
RSS
Share
Celina vs. Robert Brown and Brown & Hofmeister LLP
By Matthew Price
The law firm of Godwin Pappas Ronquillo LLP, representing the City of Celina, filed a lawsuit on April 19 against the defendants Robert Brown and Brown and Hofmeister LLP.
In the lawsuit between Pilot Point and Celina regarding annexation of the Talley Ranch, Brown was representing the City of Pilot Point. In January of 2007, Judge Bruce McFarling disqualified Brown, Brown and Hofmeister LLP, and attorney Mark Goldstucker from the lawsuit due to conflicts of interest. In the lawsuit recently filed against Brown and his firm, Celina is holding Brown and Brown and Hofmeister LLP liable for legal malpractice.
“The lawyer that was negotiating with Talley Ranch on behalf of Pilot Point (Robert Brown) is the same lawyer that was helping Celina on their annexation,” said David LaBrec, Celina’s attorney in Celina v. Pilot Point. “My client felt as if it was a conflict for Mr. Brown, and I felt like it was a conflict. Celina moved to disqualify him, and that was very expensive. Now (Brown and Hofmeister LLP) have been disqualified, so we’re prepared to move forward with the litigation.”
In June of 2005, Brown changed his advice to Celina, suggesting that they wait until January of 2007 to perform the involuntary annexation. Celina adopted a resolution in compliance with this advice.
At the same time of Brown’s advice to forestall annexation, he was also assisting Pilot Point in negotiations with Talley Ranch for Talley Ranch to become part of Pilot Point, and he had been the legal counsel for Pilot Point since April of 2004. Talley Ranch was annexed by Pilot Point in July of 2005 and a development agreement was reached between the two parties.
If Celina had reached home rule status by that time, Talley Ranch would have been in their ETJ preventing Pilot Point’s annexation. The result is loss of an area that would have continually provided a much larger tax base for Celina. Due to the disqualification of Brown and his law firm, Pilot Point has had to hire attorney Andy Messer, of The Messer law firm, to continue with that case, a timely and therefore costly diversion in the case.
“The issue that is involved, assuming we prevail in the lawsuit and Celina could have annexed the Talley Ranch Development, then the question is what amount of tax revenue have they lost,” said LaBrec regarding Celina’s case against Pilot Point.
Attorney Donald Godwin, of Godwin Pappas Ronquillo LLP is the primary attorney representing Celina in the case of City of Celina vs. Robert Brown and Brown and Hofmeister LLP. Godwin was unable to be reached for comment as he was in trial.
According to the lawsuit filed against Robert Brown and Brown and Hofmeister LLP by the law firm of Godwin Pappas Ronquillo LLP, “Brown’s actions, as herein outlined, were independently tortuous. As a result of Brown’s tortuous interference with Celina’s business relations, Celina has been damaged in an amount in excess of the minimal jurisdictional limits of this court. Celina thus seeks its actual damages, including damages for lost benefits of the prospective contract and damages for economic injury, and exemplary damages.”
The document continues, “Brown and the City of Pilot Point acted together to accomplish an unlawful purpose, namely to illegally annex Talley Ranch into Pilot Point to the detriment of Celina, thus conspiring to commit fraud, to commit breach of fiduciary duty, and to tortuously interfere with Celina’s prospective business relations.”
“It was astonishing,” said LaBrec. “I told them before they answered the case (of Celina vs. Pilot Point), before they ever filed an answer that we felt it was a conflict, and so they answered anyway, and then we had to move to disqualify (Brown), and about half way through that I said, ‘why don’t you just withdraw,’ and (Brown) said, ‘My client won’t let me.’ Well, that’s not the client’s decision. That’s the lawyer’s decision. Then, even after the judge gave them the 21st of December, the judge said, ‘I’m going to give you until (a specific date in January) to resolve this matter, and then I’m going to disqualify you.’ That pretty much tells me that I better withdraw, and they didn’t do it. It’s mind boggling to me.”
Before Messer was hired onto the case, Pilot Point made a motion for summary judgment. Both Talley Land Development Company, represented by attorney Art Anderson, and Pilot Point filed motions for summary judgment. Such a motion is intended to render judgment by the court prior to trial, based on the idea that all pertinent facts have been provided and judgment can be made based on the law.
“Since we had the disqualification issue going on, Pilot Point couldn’t go forward with their summary judgment motion. I told the judge and he agreed that we needed to deal with the disqualification issue before we deal with any issue on the merits, which we did,” said LaBrec.
LaBrec said Anderson, representing Talley Land Development Company, filed their motion for summary judgment, because the issue of Brown’s disqualification did not directly involve Talley. That motion was denied.
“One can safely assume that the court is going to deny Pilot Point’s motion also. (The two motions for summary judgment) are identical. They’re the same thing and they know that,” said LaBrec.
“We are confident the court will ultimately issue a judgment in favor of Pilot Point on the merits of the case, and it is my high honor and privilege to represent the City of Pilot Point in this case,” said Messer.
Talley’s Involvement
President of Talley Land Development Ryan Brown came to the office of the Celina Record, and a reporter for the Celina Record has gone to Brown’s office to discuss Brown’s concerns regarding their portrayal in the media.
“A lot of quotes I’ve seen make it sound like (Talley Ranch) is an antagonist in the situation,” said Brown. He said the Talley family has owned the 3,700 acre ranch for close to 20 years. “The family has a real view of how they would like to see the property develop, which is fairly progressive.”
Brown and Matt Talley, a real estate investor with MDT Investments whose family owns the Talley Ranch property, mentioned some of the aspects they are hoping to achieve in the Talley Ranch Development. They said they hope to provide green incentives and ways that they can help residents save on utilities. They mentioned integration of product and use of loss leaders as ways they hope to promote a unique community.
“We’re just excited that there’s a community for our property to identify with,” said Brown. “It’s going to be a tremendous benefit down the road that there is a community like Pilot Point that agrees with the vision the Talleys have for the property. That and the amount of communication we have had is why we ended up annexing into Pilot Point.”
Talley Land Development Company entered into a development agreement with Pilot Point and the 3,700 acre ranch was annexed into Pilot Point in July of 2005.
“Pilot Point annexed property from all the way down 455, about 8 miles. It was all done surreptitiously, and the city of Celina knew nothing about it,” said LaBrec.
“When we looked at it from the very beginning, we had attorneys that told us without a bias, ‘You can annex this property into Pilot Point or Celina’s ETJ,’ and that’s why we went and talked to both cities,” said Brown. “We feel like as a property, if there was something that Celina was interested in incorporating into their ETJ, that they had an opportunity to do that, and they just didn’t show much interest in it.”
“My ultimate message is that I would love to see the two communities sit down and talk together, whatever way that’s possible,” said Brown. “However it happens, I think the best thing for the area is that everybody keeps talking to each other.”
“If they planted the seed that Celina isn’t interested in talking, that’s just absolute fabrication, because nobody’s ever asked us,” said LaBrec. “They cut an industrial development agreement with Pilot Point, and there was no negotiation with Celina on that issue. The same lawyer was representing Celina and Pilot Point, which is very problematic for Celina.”
Robert Brown was the lawyer who helped Pilot Point to negotiate the agreement with Talley Land Development Company. Art Anderson is the attorney currently representing Talley Land Development Company in the Celina vs. Pilot Point case.
“We’re basically aligned with Pilot Point right now, because we have entered into a development agreement with Pilot Point, and from that standpoint, we’re supportive of Pilot Point’s position rather than Celina’s position in the litigation,” said Anderson. “We view it as basically, our property is the main thing that will be impacted here.”
The following are comments from the readers.
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
In no way do they represent the view of Starlocalnews.com
You must register with a valid email to post comments.
Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Only your Member ID will be posted with the comments.
Registered users sign in here:
Become a Registered User
- Return to: News «
- Home «
- Top of Page ^
