HOUSTON – Beaumont attorney Brent Coon botched his representation of a Deepwater Horizon oil spill claimant, demanding expense money upfront only to have the case dismissed for failing to comply with pretrial orders, according to a recently filed lawsuit.
Seeking more than $2 million in damages, Mark Canfora and his company filed suit against Coon and his firm on Aug. 6 in Harris County District Court.
According to the lawsuit, Canfora pursued his claim for years but the case was dismissed because his lawyers “failed to comply with simple pretrial orders.”
“What is worse, the lawyers promised to advance the expenses of the litigation but later demanded that the expenses be paid by Canfora to keep the claims alive,” the suit states. “And although Canfora complied with that unlawful request and paid their own filing fees, the lawyers simply pocketed the fees and allowed the claims to be dismissed anyway because they were overwhelmed with thousands of other BP cases.
“This is what happens when mass tort litigation goes massively wrong.”
Canfora, a real estate broker, says his claims were valued at more than $2 million – money that is “forever lost” because of trial lawyer “greed” and “neglect.”
He is suing for actual and exemplary damages.
Houston attorney Lance Kassab represents him.
D. Miller & Associates is also named as a defendant. Aside from Coon, the individual attorneys named in the suit include: Eric Newell, John Thomas, Lori Slocum, Robert Schwartz and Mary Caraway Jacob.
Case No. 2020-46985