Attorneys continue fight over same-sex legal fees

LITTLE ROCK — Searcy attorney Cheryl Maples fought back Wednesday against Little Rock attorney Jack Wagoner’s claim she’s trying to “commit a fraud upon the court” in a petition for attorneys’ fees, calling the claim “defamatory” and stemming from a “bruised ego.”

“Any first-year law student knows this is a violation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure,” Maples said, referring to Wagoner’s Sept. 15 written pleading, and attached affidavit, in which he complained Maples spent only “a couple of hours total” working on a federal case that successfully challenged the state’s samesex marriage bans.

Wagoner’s pleading was filed in reply to written objections from the state and Pulaski County they be ordered to pay $49,754 in attorneys’ fees to Wagoner and $15,900 in fees and $511 in costs to Maples, for jointly representing the successful plaintiffs in the federal case. The state has also objected to paying attorneys’ fees for Wagoner and Maples for their joint representation of different plaintiffs in a similar Pulaski County Circuit Court case.

Both cases were decided at the trial level in favor of the plaintiffs, who argued the state bans were unconstitutional. The state’s appeals of both rulings were upended by a June 26 U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling deeming all such bans across the country unconstitutional.

Maples’ lawsuit, filed in Pulaski County Circuit Court, which was the first to challenge the bans, and alleged they violated both the state and federal constitutions. A short time later, Wagoner filed the federal case, which focused on violations of the U.S. constitution. The two attorneys later joined each other’s cases as co-counsel, and now, as the prevailing parties, are asking to take advantage of laws forcing the losers to pay their fees.

In Pulaski County, Maples is seeking at least $345,000, while Wagoner’s firm is seeking at least $95,748.

In a motion to strike Wagoner’s reply in the federal case, Maples alleged his comments were “totally non- responsive” to the issue before the court, don’t constitute a proper defense to the state’s and county’s arguments, assert a request for relief against a non-party to the suit — her — and “are immaterial, impertinent and scandalous.”

Maples noted the separate fee requests from each firm aren’t in conflict or in competition with each other. She asked why a “competent, licensed attorney” would insert the remarks about his former co-counsel, then provided an answer: “The only plausible explanation is a bruised ego.”

She cited “difficulties” she said prompted her to ask Wagoner to withdraw from the Pulaski County case in June 2014. She said he refused, and, “rather than harm the case with a public airing of their difficulties, Maples agreed to his continuing as co-counsel on that case and he asked Maples join the federal lawsuit as co-counsel. Maples never asked to join the case, but felt she might have a positive impact on it, and so she accepted.”

In an attached reply she filed in the state case, Maples accused Wagoner of making untruthful statements under oath, divulging confidential work product and misleading the court. She noted when the majority of the plaintiffs in the state case fired Wagoner earlier this year, it was reported on the front page of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

She added, “It is unclear what motivated Mr. Wagoner to file such an extraordinary, baseless, libelous, untruthful and shocking pleading unless it was grounded in his anger toward and desire to deprive his former clients of their right to payment of their attorney fees and costs.”