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July 29, 2010 |
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| March 18, 2008 |
By: Billy Shields |
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oyal Caribbean Cruise Lines is suing attorney Jay Wingate to recover about $1 million in attorney fees, alleging his firm used misrepresentation to settle 23 worker-injury cases with the cruise line.
Lawyers for the Miami-based company pressed their claim Monday for the money in Miami-Dade Circuit Court after effectively forcing Wingate off a portfolio of 77 other admiralty cases.
Royal Caribbean claimed a Wingate paralegal and investigator paid kickbacks to a corrupt claims adjuster with the cruise line in exchange for inside information on acceptable settlement amounts.
Royal Caribbean had moved to disqualify Wingate from the remaining cases, but Wingate abruptly announced he would withdraw from the cases and go into semi-retirement.
“Now they’re saying ‘OK, let’s get our pound of flesh,’ ” Wingate’s lawyer, Miles McGrane III of McGrane Nosich & Ganz, told Miami-Dade Senior Circuit Judge Herb Stettin.
McGrane said Royal Caribbean lacks standing to pursue the attorney fees under a complaint filed late last month involving a batch of settlements since 2005. The complaint includes counts of unjust enrichment, commercial bribery, fraudulent misrepresentation and conspiracy.
Royal Caribbean also wants to bar Wingate from collecting any more attorney or referral fees on the remaining cases.
“Wingate and the Wingate Law Firm made these misrepresentations of fair and ethical representation against RCL knowing they had obtained confidential information through bribery,” according to the complaint filed by Curtis Mase of Mase & Lara in Miami.
Stettin has said the situation with Royal Caribbean’s ongoing litigation against Wingate and the allegations of commercial bribery will probably take a while to resolve. He took the question of Wingate’s fees under advisement.
The complaint may end up morphing into a motion Stettin would consider in the litigation involving the 77 pending cases that Wingate left as opposed to a freestanding lawsuit heading for a jury trial.
McGrane argued the judge would have to consider a motion on attorney fees in each individual case.
The cruise line contends it doesn’t want to disrupt underlying settlements with plaintiffs, just keep their attorney from profiting from them, according to the complaint.
Former Royal Caribbean claims supervisor Wanda Ballestas acknowledged in an affidavit that she accepted a series of $500 payments for the company’s confidential settlement projections and a $2,000 Christmas bonus. She admitted passing information on 20 plaintiffs to Wingate paralegal Maria Elena Parilla and investigator Nelson Ayala.
Wingate, 63, did not attend Monday’s hearing. He took over the practice of the late cruise plaintiff attorney Bill Huggett following a drawn-out pair of lawsuits involving Huggett’s widow, Jacqueline Huggett.
She accused Wingate of manipulating her in her time of grief and using his dual position as inventory attorney and associate to loot the firm of money and about 100 of the firm's clients. The firm and two employees have settled.
Billy Shields can be reached at bshields@alm.com or at (305) 347-6649.
Herb Stettin photo by A.M. Holt
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