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Lawyer's Widow Says Associate Took Funds, Clients By Jessica M.
Walker As prominent Miami lawyer William Huggett lay dying in the hospital last August, his associate and friend Jay Wingate approached Huggett’s wife, Jacqueline, and asked her to appoint him as the Huggett Law Firm’s inventory attorney. Wingate said "she needed to consent to him as inventory attorney in order to protect her interest in the firm or otherwise the court would appoint a stranger and give the cases to another firm," Mrs. Huggett says in court papers. Shortly after that, Huggett died of a stroke, at age 65. His widow promptly signed documents making Wingate, 60, the inventory attorney for the thriving maritime firm, which had scores of complex, possibly lucrative cases. Wingate was the firm’s only associate at the time of Huggett’s death. Mrs. Huggett, who has twin 10-year-old sons by Huggett and is serving as the personal representative of her late husband’s estate, is accusing Wingate of manipulating her in her time of grief to get the appointment, then using his dual position as inventory attorney and associate to loot the firm of money and about 100 of the firm’s clients. Mrs. Huggett is now fighting in court to rebuild her husband’s practice, in both the litigation surrounding the inventory attorney appointment and in a lawsuit filed this month. At the center of the fight is the question of where an inventory attorney’s loyalty lies if he or she is also an employee of the firm. The Huggett estate asserts that Wingate had a fiduciary duty to the firm, as its sole associate. Wingate counters that once he was appointed inventory attorney, his duty to the clients superseded any obligation to the firm, allowing him to solicit the Huggett firm’s clients while still employed by the Huggett Firm. Inventory attorneys are appointed by the court when an attorney dies or abandons his clients, leaving no one behind to sort through the cases. Inventory attorneys are responsible for making sure the cases do not fall through the cracks. The law allows them to take on the cases themselves or dole them out to other attorneys. Mrs. Huggett filed an unjust enrichment and breach of duty suit against Wingate in Miami-Dade Circuit Court on Feb. 3. David H. Pollack is representing Mrs. Huggett, who argued in court documents that Wingate’s efforts to snatch clients happened only after his failed negotiations to buy the firm from her. Mrs. Huggett had hoped to maintain the cases at the firm until she found a suitable buyer. But last week, Chief Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Joseph P. Farina Jr. ruled in favor of Wingate in the inventory attorney litigation, denying Mrs. Huggett’s motion to force Wingate to return any clients he solicited from the firm. He found that Wingate’s duties as an associate were superseded by his duties as inventory attorney. As an associate, Wingate would be amiss to solicit away the Huggett Firm’s clientele while still in its employ under Florida law, since he would owe a duty to the firm. However, Farina ruled that the duty owed to the clients outweighed any duty to the firm, and that Wingate had the right to keep Huggett’s cases. In his order, Farina wrote that The Florida Bar has not adequately addressed what constitutes a proper contact letter from an inventory attorney to clients. Farina asked the Bar to address the issue. Mrs. Huggett’s attorney plans to appeal Farina’s decision. |
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A Feast
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