COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa (Legal Newsline) – A procedural motion from an out-of-state asbestos attorney has drawn the attention of the companies she is suing in Iowa, as they say it contains inaccurate information about her past.
Ford Motor Company and Honeywell International filed a motion Feb. 25 in Pottawattamie County court that would require Texas lawyer Jessica Dean to resubmit her pro hac vice request to represent Clayton and Donna Rhodes in the court.
The motion says Dean – partner at Dean Omar Branham Shirley in Dallas – has been denied admission in another jurisdiction as well as having been sanctioned by a Minnesota court, despite representations on her application that neither happened.
“For these reasons, it is incumbent upon Ford and Honeywell to advise the Court of this information and request the Court order Ms. Dean resubmit her application with full and accurate information,” the motion says.
“This Court cannot fully and properly review the application for admission pro hac vice and determine whether Ms. Dean has met the requirements of Iowa Court Rule 31.14 until she provides full and accurate answers and submits the requisite documentation required to further advise the Court of the circumstances.”
And it’s not like the instances allegedly concealed are part of the ancient past. Dean was just sanctioned in July in Ramsey County, Minn.
She had violated an in limine order during the asbestos trial of client Jeffrey Richard Henry, leading to a mistrial. Defendants filed a motion for sanctions that sought their attorneys fees and costs.
The motion was granted – “Plaintiff’s counsel shall pay a fee and cost sanction of $77,996.80,” the judge ruled. But when filling out the pro hac vice application in the Iowa case, she answered “no” when asked if she had ever been held formally in contempt or otherwise sanctioned in the last five years for disobedience to the court’s rules or orders.
She also said she hadn’t been refused pro hac vice status in any other court, but Ford and Honeywell say that happened in 2015 in Connecticut.
“In the Reed case, Ms. Dean attested in her supporting affidavit that she had never been admitted pro hac vice in Connecticut before, when in fact, she had previously tried a case in the same courtroom,” the motion says.
Dean claimed her error was made in not looking at the application close enough.
“The Connecticut court denied Ms. Dean’s application for pro hac vice admission, noting that it was ‘troubled by the error contained in the affidavit’ and could not ‘in good conscience grant (Ms. Dean’s) application in light of the statement made in the original affidavit,” Ford and Honeywell wrote.