Appeal filed against oil magnate’s estate

Tulsa businessman Thomas Quinn this week appealed a district court ruling and again asked for more than $500,000 from the estate of late Oklahoma City oil and natural gas magnate Aubrey McClendon.

Quinn last summer filed a claim against the estate, saying he loaned McClendon $500,000 in 1991 and is owed the principal, plus interest, late fees and attorney fees. The estate rejected the claim.

Quinn sued the estate in October 2016, but Judge Patricia G. Parrish last month issued a summary judgment against Quinn, siding with the estate, which said Quinn’s loan agreement was forged.

In the motion for summary judgment, the McClendon estate said the alleged 1991 promissory note was copied from a template from the website of celebrity financial adviser Suze Orman and that Orman’s form was created in 2007 and available for download beginning in 2013.

The estate also argued that the form was written in Tahoma font, which was first available in August 1995 in connection with the release of Windows 95, “making it impossible for the Quinn Forgery to have existed in December 1991, when Plaintiff Quinn says Mr. McClendon signed it.”

Quinn responded to the request for summary judgment by accusing the estate’s attorneys of forgery and threatening a defamation lawsuit against them for accusing him of forgery.

In the response, Quinn also said many fonts are clones or copies of fonts that were in use much earlier. He said he should have the right to cross examine the expert witnesses whose testimony is the basis of the estate’s case against him.

Quinn on Wednesday filed his appeal with the state Supreme Court, arguing against the summary judgment, challenging the constitutionality of the judgment because it was not a trial by jury and claiming fraud upon the court. Quinn said he is representing himself without an attorney.