HOUSTON – Beaumont attorney Brent Coon has been ordered to pay attorney’s fees in a lawsuit accusing him of botching his representation of a Deepwater Horizon oil spill claimant.
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.”
Court records show Coon filed a motion to dismiss on Nov. 11.
The motion states Canfora hired another firm, D. Miller & Associates, to handle his claim. Miller brought in Coon’s firm to assist. Together, they helped Canfora land a settlement well into the six figures.
Canfora also sought to pursue two other “dubious” claims but was convinced not to and dropped the claims.
“Several years then passed, and now Canfora has apparently run out of money again, and found a lawyer willing to sue on the patently frivolous allegation that Canfora’s lawyers failed to prosecute claims that he himself had agreed to drop,” the motion states.
Houston attorney Lance Kassab represents Canfora.
On Dec. 29, the trial court signed an order sustaining the plaintiffs’ objections to the motion and ordered Coon to pay Kassab $6,300 in attorney’s fess.
Case No. 2020-46985