Judge declines to dismiss nursing home lawsuit

CONWAY — A judge on Wednesday declined to dismiss a corruption lawsuit against nursing-home owner Michael Morton and former lobbyist Gilbert Baker.

Special Circuit Judge David Laser also granted a motion to exclude testimony by the defense’s expert witness, retired U.S. District Judge James Moody Sr.

“We’re obviously pleased with Judge Laser’s rulings. We felt that he followed the law,” said attorney Thomas Buchanan, who represents the family suing Morton and Baker in Faulkner County Circuit Court.

Moody has defended a July 2013 ruling in which former Circuit Judge Michael Maggio cut a Faulkner County jury’s judgment against a Morton-owned nursing home from $5.2 million to $1 million. The now-imprisoned Maggio ruled in a negligence lawsuit filed by two daughters of Martha Bull, a Perryville woman who died in Morton’s Greenbrier Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in 2008.

Attorneys for Bull’s family have argued Maggio lowered the judgment after Morton and Baker conspired to bribe Maggio. Maggio pleaded guilty to a federal bribery charge in January 2015, and a grand jury indicted Baker on conspiracy, bribery and wire-fraud charges earlier this year. Morton hasn’t been charged, and he and Baker deny wrongdoing.

Attorneys for Bull’s family noted Moody said Maggio’s ruling reducing the judgment was appropriate under Arkansas law and “any reasonable, impartial judge would have reached the same conclusion.”

The attorneys countered it doesn’t matter if an impartial judge would have ruled the same as Maggio because, they said, “The bribe, in and of itself, renders Judge Moody’s opinions irrelevant and unreliable.”

Laser seemed to agree. Laser “found little probative value in Moody’s opinions and found that the danger of undue prejudice and confusion of the issue outweighed any probative value,” according to Buchanan, who’s to prepare Laser’s decisions in writing for the court. Judges often have the attorney who won a specific argument draft that ruling.

Two of Morton’s attorneys, John Everett and Kirkman Dougherty, didn’t return phone messages seeking comment Tuesday.

In asking Laser to dismiss the lawsuit, Everett and Dougherty argued in a court document the plaintiffs couldn’t cite ” a single piece of admissible evidence that could establish that Morton ever spoke to or communicated with Maggio in any way.”

They added, “The only ‘evidence’ the plaintiffs cite to as proof Morton was involved in the alleged bribery of Maggio is Maggio’s plea agreement,” which they called “inadmissible hearsay.” They also noted Maggio later tried to withdraw his guilty plea but a judge rejected the request.

But on Wednesday, Laser agreed to grant “judicial notice” to Maggio’s guilty plea and conviction, meaning the court accepts both as fact. Laser declined, however, to grant that recognition to the content of Maggio’s plea agreement. That agreement contains allegations Morton and Baker have disputed. Those allegations no doubt would be part of any trial of the lawsuit against the two men.