HACKENSACK, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – A whistleblower who scored a $200,000 settlement will continue his battle with his former lawyers who claim to be entitled to part of it.
The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court issued its ruling May 12 in the Toscano Law Firm’s lawsuit against Ellis Haroldson, a man it had represented for two years before being fired.
Three weeks after that termination, Haroldson and his new lawyers settled his lawsuit. Months after that, the Toscano firm sued Haroldson for fees from the settlement, ultimately scoring a $31,000 verdict in its favor following a bench trial.
The trial judge also rejected Haroldson’s claim that Toscano committed legal malpractice and that he was entitled to recover the $15,000 retainer he once paid it.
The appellate division says Haroldson should have been granted a jury trial.
“(R)ather than treating the $15,000 retainer as credit, or finding that it raised issues ‘inextricably tied’ to the lien claim, the trial court treated the retainer dispute as a breach of contract claim, wholly distinct from the lien claim,” the decision says.
“The court made credibility and fact findings regarding the promise Toscano allegedly made to Haroldson to return the retainer and found against Haroldson based solely on those findings.
“The court, however, treated these findings as unrelated to the value of the work the Firm performed and the amount it was entitled to collect under the lien claim.
“The problem with the court’s approach of treating the $15,000 retainer dispute as a breach of contract claim is that a jury trial right attached to that claim and, if that claim continued intact after Haroldson’s other claims were dismissed, then… the court had no power to deprive Haroldson of a jury without his consent.”
Haroldson was a police officer in Cliffside Park until 2010. He complained that the mayor and borough council did not process complaints about local bars for violating the law because the mayor’s son worked in the liquor industry, supplying those bars.
Haroldson faced a disciplinary charge of harassing a man to collect a personal debt. A suspension inadvertently terminated his employment, and he filed a lawsuit against the borough the next year through the Toscano Law Firm.