ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Legal Newsline) - Alaska’s high court upheld nearly $100,000 in sanctions against a lawyer who pursued a wrongful-termination lawsuit against Alaska Airlines for nearly a year without informing the airline or the court that his client was dead.
The state Supreme Court reversed a smaller award against the estate of the late plaintiff, however, saying the airline couldn’t collect from the estate because it wasn’t a party to the case.
Helen Lingley sued Alaska Airlines for age discrimination and other claims after she was fired in 2012 for violating company policy. The trial court dismissed her case but the Alaska Supreme Court reversed, saying she should have been allowed to amend her complaint. The case landed back in the lower court in May 2016 and in June Alaska Airlines offered Lingley $20,000 if she signed a “standard settlement agreement.”
Lingley’s lawyer, Fred Triem, drafted his own version and Lingley signed it June 22, but the airline rejected it and sent a redrafted standard agreement back on June 27. Lingley died of lung cancer on June 24, meanwhile. Triem kept on negotiating without informing the airline or the court of her death.
At one point the airline offered a partial compromise, adopting some of Triem’s language but adding federally mandated terms and a more thorough waiver of claims. Triem rejected that agreement, too, and on Aug. 1 asked the court to enforce the June 22 agreement. On Aug. 11 he filed an amended complaint, claiming breach of the settlement agreement, and went through oral argument without telling the judge or the airline that his client was dead.
The superior court denied Triem’s motion to enforce the settlement contract and awarded Alaska Airlines $5,000 in fees for his “unreasonable and vexatious” behavior. The two sides then mediated the dispute from February to April 2017.
Triem finally told the court his client was dead on May 1, claiming he’d only just learned about it that day. The court disqualified him from representing Lingley’s estate on June 26 and Triem then moved to have another lawyer represent his dead former client’s estate in the employment suit. The court denied his motion, citing the prior disqualification. A lawyer for the estate asked the court to reinstate Triem, saying no one else would take on the case.
The court denied both motions and Alaska Airlines sought to recover $225,000 in legal costs and a $50,000 penalty from Triem and the estate. The court cut the award to $99,000 against Triem and $43,000 against Lingley’s estate, representing the time she was still alive and pursuing her case. Triem and the estate appealed both his removal from the case and the sanctions.
The supreme court acknowledged the “convoluted nature” of the case at the outset and agreed with the estate that regardless of whether it was actually party to the employment suit it had the right to challenge the disqualification of the attorney of its choice. But the lower court was also within its rights in disqualifying Triem, the high court ruled.
“The court has an interest in managing its docket efficiently, and the public has an interest in a justice system deserving of its trust,” wrote Chief Justice Joel Bolger. “When faced with gross misconduct that calls the integrity of the justice system into question, a court must protect its own integrity, the integrity of the bar, and the integrity of the justice system as a whole. One way to do so is by disqualifying the offending attorney.”
The estate also argued Triem should be treated more leniently because he took the case pro bono or without a fee, but the court said “we are unwilling to grant pro bono attorneys blanket protection from disqualification.
The court was also within its authority to reject Triem’s motion to substitute another lawyer, the high court ruled. The estate knew he’d been disqualified and should have filed the motion itself.
The lower court erred when it dismissed the whole matter on summary judgment and ordered part of the fees to be paid by the estate, however. Since Lingley’s estate wasn’t actually before the court, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled, there was no one present to argue against summary judgment.
Alaska Airlines lost its chance to recover fees from the estate when it failed to move to substitute the estate as a party, the court ruled. But estate also lost its chance to recover anything from the employment case because it was extinguished on Lingley’s death under Alaska Rule 25and the estate didn’t file a motion to substitute itself as a party within the 90-day deadline.
“The Estate cannot insert itself at the appellate level to continue litigating a matter that it declined to pursue in the superior court,” the high court ruled.
“The Estate will lose no money if judgment is enforced against Triem, nor will any of its legal interests be compromised.”
Triem separately appealed the order of sanctions against him but apparently dropped the appeal and the Supreme Court dismissed it for nonprosecution in September 2020.
“Triem’s conduct in this case was egregious,” the supreme court ruled. “The superior court determined that conduct to be worthy of sanction. We decline to reconsider the superior court’s reasoning on this issue when there is no party before us with standing to contest the matter.”