HOUSTON - A Texas lawyer alleged to have gone rogue over the sale of a Cleveland hospital has been suspended for three years.
Brazoria County District Court Judge Greg Hill issued the punishment in November against Sonya Chandler-Anderson, who went to state court to block the sale of Cleveland Imaging and Surgical Hospital.
She once represented doctors who owned CISH but had to go to bankruptcy court. And she also filed actions on her own, claiming a title dispute when CISH was sold, and was disqualified as their lawyer at one point.
"After being disqualified as the Doctors' attorney, the Respondent (Chandler-Anderson) continued to act as the Doctors' lawyer by remaining as the Doctors' appellate attorney, continued to file pleadings as counsel for the Doctors in the bankruptcy case, and at times allowed her credentials to be used in pro se filings by the Doctors in the bankruptcy case," the Commission for Lawyer Discipline wrote in October.
"Respondent did not stop violating the order terminating her as attorney for the Doctors until another order was issued on Jan. 22, 2021, cautioning Respondent to stop acting as the Doctors' lawyer."
After a jury trial, Judge Hill issued the suspension and ordered Chandler-Anderson to pay the State Bar of Texas $6,410.
CISH filed for bankruptcy in September 2014. Its owners were doctors Camil and Samir Kreit and Fadi Ghanem, Chandler-Anderson's clients.
The bankruptcy court approved CISH's sale to CISH Acquisitions in 2015, but the doctors never appealed. Instead, they filed a lis pendens action in Liberty County five years later with the idea the hospital was subject to a title dispute.
In response, CISH filed contempt proceedings in the bankruptcy case against the doctors and Chandler-Anderson. It said the lis pendens order violated the sale order issued five years earlier.
The court told the doctors they could withdraw the lis pendens action to avoid contempt, but they said they never authorized it. Instead, Chandler-Anderson said she had filed it on behalf of the community.
"At this point with the possibility of sanctions to her clients looming, who did not ask for or approve for her to file the lis pendens, a conflict of interest was created between Respondent and the Doctors, such that Respondent should have withdrawn from representing the Doctors, but did not do so," the CLD wrote.
Chandler-Anderson refused to withdraw the lis pendens, arguing the sale order was the result of fraud on the court. The bankruptcy court terminated her as counsel for the doctors in April 2020.
Still, the CLD petition says, she continued to help them by remaining their appellate attorney ad allowing her credentials to be used in pro se filings. By January 2021, contempt violations totaled $147,000.
Chandler-Anderson didn't show at a February 2021 hearing. The suspension order by Hill mandated she tell current clients she has been suspended.