I sue you, you sue me. So goes the Ballad of Rudy the Warnock. Former Madison County engineer Rudy Warnock filed an amended complaint against his former client in U.S. District Court last Thursday as he claimed the county owed him $1.448 million. Madison County said "we see you one lawsuit and raise you one lawsuit" as it sued Mr. Warnock and his firm in Madison County Circuit Court yesterday.
Warnock lawsuit
Mr. Warnock sued Madison County as well as County Engineer Dan Gaillet and all five Superivors in their official and individual capacities. He claimed the county owed him payment on "35 construction projects". Paragraph 21 (p.4) itemizes the alleged damages. Mr. Warnock also claims some of the plans and other engineering designs are copyrighted materials and refuses to release them to the county. The North Highland Colony Parkway is one such project. Mr. Warnock argues:
The North Highland Colony Parkway Engineering Work is protected by copyright, and Plaintiffs own copyrights in the North Highland Colony Parkway Engineering Work.He makes similar claims for the Yandell Road, Bozeman Road, and Reunion Parkway III-A projects. He said he plans to apply for registration of copyright for the engineering work for Calhoun Station, Reunion Parkway II, and Gluckstadt Road projects.
37. Plaintiffs have applied for registration of the North Highland Colony Parkway Engineering Work with the Register of Copyrights, paid the required fee, deposited the work in question, and the Copyright Office has received the registration application. Plaintiffs are awaiting issuance of a certificate of registration which, upon receipt, will be filed with the Court.
Mr. Warnock also argued that the Board of Supervisors voted to pay him $91,330 at its January 19 meeting but that the payment has not been made. The plaintiff alleges that Mr. Gaillet used his copyrighted work without permission to work on several projects.
The complaint charges the defendants with copyright, contributory, and vicarious infringement. Mr. Warnock also threw in a charge of breach of contract and prayyyyyed for some relief as well as some actual damages, attorney's fees, and interest. Mr. Warnock is represented by attorney Dorsey Carson. The case is assigned to Judge Carlton Reeves and referred to Magistrate Keith Ball.
Madison County lawsuit
Not to be outdone by the wayward engineer, Madison County sued Mr. Warnock in Madison County Circuit Court yesterday. The case is assigned to Judge Steve Ratcliff. Madison County argued that the engineer knew his contract would end when the term expired and that he had a duty to cooperate with the incoming engineer to ensure a smooth transition.
Madison County argued there was no federal jurisdiction over Mr. Warnock's claims. The complaint states that Madison County owes no money to Warnock & Associates and that if anything, the engineering firm owes money to the county for "overpayments" for "work billed but not performed and/or overbilled." Dem's fightin' words.
The complaint states alleges that Madison County "owns all engineering documents created by Rudy Warnock for any and all state aid projects" (a list of projects is provided on pages 5-7). Then there is Sulpher Springs.
Madison County states that Mr. Warnock
was required to submit to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality a notice of completion and a set of "as-built" plans showing that Sulphur Springs park dam work was comleted in substantial compliance with the plans approved by MDEQ in January 2014. MDEQ has been requesting this information since October 25, 2015. Warnock has refused to provide the requested information which is in or should be in his possession.Madison County asked the Court to order Mr. Warnock to deliver all plans and specifications to the county. It also asked the court to rule that he breached several contracts and intentionally interfered with other contracts. Madison County charged that the refusal to provide his engineering designs was "conversion" and asked for actual and punitive damages against the engineer. The complaint asks for an accounting of payments made to Warnock LLC for a list of contracts provided in the lawsuit.
Without the above listed required docuemnts, MDEQ will not issue a surface water impoundment permit. Impounding water without a permit is a violation of state law.
Failure to complety with MDEQ's requests will result in a final notice letter being issued by MDEQ that will set a timeline for bringing this matter before the Commission on Environmental Quality. The Commission can order that the lake be drained and that any dam remaining in an unsafe condition be removed. Warnock LLC has failed and refused to submit the required documents....
Madison County is represented by.............. David Mockbee. What? You thought $200,000 per year attorney Katie Bryant Snell would have represented the county? You would be wrong. Stay tuned. This will be fun to watch.
63 comments:
Why is Madison County paying an outside law firm to handle this lawsuit? I thought that is what the board attorney was being paid $200,00 a year to do.
Mockbee is who trained Carson. Who better to beat a Sith Lord than a Sith Master?
Looks like FEEL's daughter gets paid $200,000 just to show up at meetings. If the county needs any real legal work, they have to go hire and pay a real attorney. Feel's daughter gets paid regardless.
Corruption in Madison County may have been reduced, but it is still alive. Feel's office is in charge and giving orders, even on which employees to hire in addition to the attorney.
So what does this mean for us tax payers? I tell you what, the new supervisors, Baxter, Jones & Bishop are paying lawyers so the lawyers will help Bishop with his legal bills. Sheila has said multiple times she is not running again, but Baxter has higher aspirations. So to you Baxter I suggest you find a way to end the wasteful spending as promised or suffer the consequences in 3 years. You can't end wasteful spending with the engineer and start wasteful spending on Lawyers. I promise you public perception of wasteful spending on Lawyers will be much worse than on engineers. Compromise is king!! Take it from an old grey haired man that attends every board meeting. God bless!!
Now, come on y'all. Katie B. did her job here. It went like this:
Supervisor A: Okay, so we're agreed. We're going to file a lawsuit against Rudy Warnock. So what do we need to do now?
[All eyes turn to KB.]
KB: Ummmmmm ........ Hire a ... lawyer?
Supervisor B: Brilliant!
Supervisor C: You nailed it again, counselor!
[Applause all around.]
Can't wait for all the documents and throwbacks!!!!!
@1:24 - You mean to tell me that Shelia Jones, an attorney herself, is a whipped puppy already and shes not four months in to her term??? WTF good is she for Madison County as a supervisor if her tender ego and dainty self cant handle it?? Doesnt she know how to play with the grownups in the real world?
Jones is just helping Baxter prepare to run for "higher office". Feels orders come to Baxter and then he orders Bishop and Jones.
131. so awesome. and likely true!
1:24 You are mistaken about Sheia Jones. I have known her 30+ years and her integrity is unimpeachable. She is nobody's "whipped puppy". I suggest you go to a board meeting sometime and see for yourself before you cast aspersions on citizens who actually try to do something for others rather than themselves. Madison County is lucky to have a lady of her caliber.
What did Jones think it was going to be....coffee, tea cakes and private offices?? She's not in her own little world and having to deal with the public...EGAD.....and she doesnt like it! Oh well, maybe she can go back to practicing law OR go back to housewifedom.
Honey, your skin is going to get real thick over the next 4 years.
A few comments. Ownership of the plans and specs is always a sticky issue. My contracts say I retain an ownership interest in the plans, but it also gives the owner a joint interest in the plans, as long as they are used for the project they were designed for. Madison County's ownership will boil down to what the contract between the county and Rudi stated.
Regarding David Mockbee, it is a great idea to hire him as the lawsuit is very specialized and Sheriff Bryant's daughter is likely not well versed in this type of lawsuit. (for all of you teabaggers bitching about another attorney, I work all over the state and a city or county attorney never gets involved in lawsuits-they are always hired out)
I am a little surprised that Rudi actually sued, because now the county can request all of his files and records during discovery. This is of course assuming that anything incriminating either does not exist or if so, it has been altered or destroyed.
Right or wrong, lawyers who work full time for government do not handle much big stuff; just day to day paper work.Things like this are farmed out. Must think that Rudy has fried his brain going into court with real dirty hands. Of coarse the worst of the lot are the supervisors who hired and pay Rudy knowing that no work was being done by him. Rudy's defense will be "you knew I was a crook when you hired me"so pay up.
No story on HB 1523?
2:56, I really thought you knew what you talking about until you said this: (for all of you teabaggers bitching about another attorney, I work all over the state and a city or county attorney never gets involved in lawsuits-they are always hired out)
The majority of city and county attorneys in the state handle the litigation for the entity that employs them. Mainly, because they want the fees, and also, because they're competent to handle the litigation. Madison County doesn't have an attorney with great competence so expect them to keep shopping work out going forward.
2:45: Hey Sheila!
I hope that if Rudy loses, the county can't take his BENTLEY away.
3:12 Then why the big bucks paid to a board attorney if the tough time consuming stuff is hired out? She is getting $200,000 per year. What does that pay for? Daddy's blessings?
State law prohibits a county from paying more than 25% of a budget item during 1st three months ( October thru December) of the budget year when a new Board is to take over in January. Both the prior Administrator and the Engineer said these bills that were submitted in January were held to prevent violating this law. To me, holding the invoices until after December 31 for work performed before December 31 and then submitting them would still be violation.
Otherwise the old board could spend all the money and not let the vendors submit the invoices until after December 31.
David and Alex will be really tough to deal with and will wear Rudy out. Rudy better have set aside a good war chest for this one. I predict the only real winners will be David, Alex and Dorsey, provided Rudy actually pays Dorsey for all his time.
Mockbee has specialized in construction litigation for a very long time, and an attorney with his experience/ability is needed to try a lawsuit of this nature. Attorney's with this level of experience/ability, do not take jobs as county attorneys making $200,000 a year. This is why counties routinely farm out complex litigation. No county attorney can be an expert in everything, and it doesn't make sense to hire 10 different attorneys in 10 different specialties for that one day you might need one of them.
It's true that attorneys with Mrs. Snell's level of experience typically make in the $80-100,000 range (if they have jobs at all) and that they usually are working 60+ hours a week for it, but the reality of it is they don't have the connections she does. Madison County evidently decided they would be getting a net benefit worth more than $200,000 by hiring her, and I
suspect they were correct. Not suggesting anything improper at all, but you don't hire an attorney solely because they can recite the most law. The relationships an attorney has (and the quality of those relationships) is important, because it is faster/cheaper and easier to resolve a matter where there are existing relationships than when the people working on something together don't already know and trust one another. This is especially true in a quasi-political law job, such as county attorney.
Lemme see Bros'. Ya'll don't miss a chance to run down the Three Musketeers that saved us MC taxpayers from Warnock and his puppets (Banks, Howland, John Bell Crosby, and Griffin-Stokes) who have been Gang - Banging the county w/o lube for years.
Sheila has more courage, backbone & integrity than all you brave keyboard cowboys put together!! She ran for supervisor simply because she (like a majority of the voters) was sick of the corruption & incompetence of our former supervisors. She ran for office to make a difference and won by a large margin.
The job of supervisor is a tough, thankless job that only pays about $45-50K. In my opinion, no honest person would want that job unless they were on a mission to improve our government. I am not aware of Sheila's intensions for next term. She has four years of hard work to do before then.
@4:24. Thank you for adding an intelligent comment to this discussion. From the looks of all the bullshit posts above, Rudy and Associates must have a lot of time on their hands now that they are unemployed.............
There aint crap about these cases that require Mockbee's level of construction expertise. These are basic contract cases that any attorney who passes the bar should be able to handle, especially one making $200K a year. When you hire someone with zero litigation experience to handle your work this is what you get... The County has to pay her for nothing, outsource the work to competent attorneys at additional costs, and then maybe pay Rudy on top of that if it loses. Madison county will be the new target for jackpot justice when the plaintiffs bar sniffs out low hanging fruit.
Lots of former supervisors are posting above ---- Sure makes you glad they hold the title of former !!!
In case some people are wondering, Mockbee literally wrote the book on construction law in Mississippi.
Mockbee is a fine attorney. He is by no means the "best" lawyer there is and he did not write the law on construction in MS.
KF....you literally havent a clue.
Mockbee didnt "train" Dorsey either. Dorsey worked there true.
Dorsey learned construction law from Smith Currie in Atlanta and those guys literally wrote and write the books on construction law.
Rudy's case is pending in US Disrict Court on federal issues dealing with copyright and Phillette's suit is in State court dealing with state law based contractual issues among other issues.
Will Reeves take the state court case and decide the state cases as anciallry proceedings? Will the Federal case usurp the contractual issues thereby mooting the state court claims?
Should be interesting to watch.
What I know for sure is that Madison county got duped into hiring a new lawyer for the BOS and maligned a good man insodoing.
6:53,who Is the maligned good man?
why, it is 'anonymous' at 6:35, of course.
Holy Mother of Jesus! If 6:53 is talking about Mike Chicken-Wing Espy being a 'maligned good man', the family of 6:53 needs to get together and check on a room at Whitfield.
Yep...this is going to be a good one.
Mockbee will wear Madison County's ass out to the tune of HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS in fees.
Let's settle this right now.
Rudy get's 1/2 of the 1.44 million and turns over all work documents to the county.
That would be a GREAT deal for all parties. However, Mockbee will collect about $500,000 in fees and then the county will pay Rudy (about 1/2) in exchange for the docs.
You watch and see if this isn't what happens in about 3-5 years...............
9:51 PM
Rudy wont take half. He will get paid in full. Contracts call for atty fees to prevailing party.
Look for Phillette to bill for time reading while Mockbee loses...bills $500k....and then the BOS has to pay Rudy in full and Rudys fees of $500k.
Arent yall glad you "got rid" of the problems?
Yall make Stokes look tame.
Hell Baxter you don't look worried. Yes order another drink and pretend that your not being watched by us taxpayers. The difference between Feel Bryant and you is that he is smart enough to not get drunk in public. In public office you either are someone wears proud of or an embarrassment to your family. Can you guess where you will be....... You better wake up before Warnock tattoos you boy!!
And as far as writing books...Hattiesburgs own Overton Currie actually did just that....catch up son
http://m.legacy.com/obituaries/atlanta/obituary.aspx?n=overton-a-currie&pid=3224757&referrer=0&preview=false
That you Miz Howland?
Sheila has a ways to go. She almost go the county into a lawsuit that would have been a slam-dunk loss over a C-store on highway 51 that was already correctly zoned. It would have cost the county over $1,000,000. The old supervisors wasted money on Rudy, a lake, etc. The new ones are wasting money on other stuff. As Brad Sellers used to say when a new group would get elected: "same ole sh**, just different asses in the seats".
7:49 AM
That seems to be spot on.
I hope this doesn't mean the supervisors and other county officials won't be invited to Rudy's Christmas party this year??????????
Hey how about some chalkboard chat from you Sheila. You had all the answers when you ran for office and now you are silent... You were right about one thing. You will be a one term supervisor! You and Trey both are failing district 1 and the rest of the county. Would you hire someone to paint your house and then allow that painter to hire another company who will bill you even more money to do the job? NO!! So why are you allowing they lawyer (Katie) to do this to us taxpayers???? Where did the common since approach I voted for go??
Good analogy. So let's get this right. New board hired a lawyer that can't lawyer! New board hired an engineer that even the city of Jackson fired. The new lawyer Katie Bryant recommends the new board hire X law firms to do her job. New county engineer Dan Gullet recommends the new board hire X engineering firms to do his job. WOW. So now we are paying Katie & Dan to recommend "OTHER" Lawyers & Engineers to do their jobs!!!! Wake up Madison County WE are getting screwed. This is EXACTLY why the city of Jackson is in bad shape..... TREY time to do what you promised and end wasteful spending!!!!!
I have litigated against David Mockbee, He is hyper-aggressive, but he is not God. (He is a jerk, on a personal level).
He will definitely come after Rudy hard, however - and bill Madison County about $750,000 by the time the dust settles.
Phil's daughter is a joke. I cannot believe the comments on here about paying to play, viz a viz her connections. Maybe that is wrong with business as usual in Madison County and Mississippi, more generally.
96% of the above posts are by disgruntled boys who got kicked to the curb or their wives or their girl friends or contractors who had their cush contracts ended or by malcontents who wanted to be appointed but missed the boat.
It's odd that these posts bring them such an orgasmic form of entertainment. Where's that Italian guy from Chicago who was running Howland's campaign? Bwahahahahaha.
Slow, rolling golf clap:
Now, come on y'all. Katie B. did her job here. It went like this:
Supervisor A: Okay, so we're agreed. We're going to file a lawsuit against Rudy Warnock. So what do we need to do now?
[All eyes turn to KB.]
KB: Ummmmmm ........ Hire a ... lawyer?
Supervisor B: Brilliant!
Supervisor C: You nailed it again, counselor!
[Applause all around.]
That's good work right there.
"New board hired an engineer that even the city of Jackson fired. "
Can't speak to his qualifications (n.b.: I have heard nothing negative about him except from you just now) but he got fired because his skin was the wrong color for TPTB in Jackson. He immediately got hired by another MS city that is NOT a Third World cesspool.
Someone please request Phillette's time sheets she has to keep up with.
I cannot wait to read these entries.
12.9 - meet with real lawyer to discuss these funny papers someone left here.
72.4 - think....what shoes should I wear to Mockbees office to hire him and agree to spend 1 million dollars for work I cant do
129.7 - litigate or some such activity
.2 - phone call with diddy to discuss why this is so hard
.9 - look up word "lawyer" and gaze for .8 of this entry
Yall folks in Madison sure know how to fix things!
Kenneth is laughing so hard he almost choked on a runaway Clinton police cruiser.
I don't know the daughter nor the engineer. I do know that most corporate councils do not try cases when their business is involved in litigation also many corporate IT departments contract outside vendors for large projects. I'm all for holding elected officials responsible and there is no question that Madison county has a questionable past regarding elected officials using their positions to fatten their wallets but most of these posters show their lack of knowledge and vitriol for anyone other than themselves.
My question is, who was instrumental in hiring Katy Bryant (whoever) as Board Attorney? Obviously, this had to be some type of pay back to the gov. It certainly was not based on her experience,expertise or qualifications. I understand that Butler Snow was only too happy to be rid of her. Word has it from the Ole Miss School of Law that she was dumb as a brick and country as a turnip green while being enrolled there. It is a shame that the taxpayers of Madison County are getting screwed by paying an incompetent lawyer (in name only) $200,000 annually for doing absolutely nothing other than attending meetings. I encourage all Madison County taxpayers to look into this absolute waste of county funds. Stop allowing this gross mismanagement of funds to continue.
The Street Committee said no one could agree on an attorney. At least two wanted to keep the previous one. Two more wanted to hire a well-known GOP consiglieri but Steen and the others would not go for it. Supposedly Herring wanted it but no one wanted to hire that incompetent dinosaur. Quite a few capable attorneys didn't want to step into that briar patch. They shied away from a big firm (after talking to one) because they realized they would be getting billed for 10 or more lawyers and staff everytime the firm thought about county business. A firm that has been known to charge over a million a year to other government clients. All the factions cancelled each other out.
Trey+Sheila+Bishop=Katie=Phil=$$$$$$. Let's rape Madison county!! Guess what? This didn't work with the supes voted out and it won't work with these supes!!! Us taxpayers will see you in 3 years and show you the exit door!!' Shameful!!!!! I hope all three of you are in church tomorrow begging for forgiveness for lieing to us taxpayers!!!!!!
I see Sheila at church on Sunday's and use to think more of her. When my family of 12 looks at be this Sunday it won't be as we have viewed her in the past. I'm praying for you Sheila!
Kingfish is having secret lunch with the wrong snitches if he actually believes there was a power-play at work here. Griffin and Steen obviously wanted to retain their boy, Espy.
You people on here bitching about the current lawyer are precisely the people who realize your brown envelope will not be delivered this coming Christmas.
And you can bet Rudy's barnful of Howland's campaign signs that there are sphincters tightened up all over Madison County hoping they won't be called to testify on behalf of Rudolph or the prior Board when this fiasco goes to trial.
And, speaking of church, you can bet John Bell's new landscape job that none of the deposed crowd have darkened the chapel-door since they were turned out of office.
Thank you Mr. Worm Farm for your excellent observations.
You know what they say: If you repeat a lie often enough, then people will start believing it. So now Rudy, Dorsey, and other deposed crooks are working overtime posting "corruption" bullshit about the new supes.
You guys were there when Banks, Howland, John Bell, Steen, et. al. were using the county treasury as their personal piggy-bank. Did you have a problem with their secret $1.2 million contract to Rudy for an unneeded (nor wanted) airport study that could have been done for $100-200K by an honest (non kick-back) consultant??? Where were you when they were pouring $3 million into Griffin-Stokes' lake "resort" that (thanks to Warnock Engineering) was dug over a dome of sand and won't hold water??
The new Supes inherited a million miles of terrible roads caused by the former Supes neglect. Fixing them will be a problem since the former Supes pissed our money away leaving little for road repair.
Rudy had to back off the Christmas Envelopes this past December and all of those deposed characters' wives and girlfriends are suffering greatly. They were already budgeting those envelopes out three years in the future. Damn! Just damn!
And pray tell where in the hell those guys can get real jobs now other than selling cars or AFLAC.
When the old board is deposed (banks, Howland, CROSBY & griffin) Mockbee will learn that the old board authorized all the work and the county will be out $500k in legal fees and will have to pay Warnock. I suspect that even a few of Steens dirty secrets might be exposed by Warnock. Warnock knows all the dirty secrets that would be embarrassing to some people. Might even cause a few divorces.
OK @1:16...So even if work was authorized, how much of it was actually done?? I am sure Rudy billed for everything one or more times - whether the work was actually done. Looking at the awful shape the county is in, it doesn't appear we got anything from his work except a bogus study for the Warnock-Banks International Airport and the Warnock*Griffin-Stokes Resort cluster fk.
It's just a damned shame none of these crooks have been able to go to Destin lately. Howland was never elected but still got a Christmas envelope. He had to glance over at Banks and Griffin to know how to vote. Crosby, well, the same. Not sure how Steen survived and he is still wondering, himself. At least Griffin has calmed down and realizes his vote ain't shit.
@7:20..You wanna know how Steen survived....Simple!! He is good at lying and playing smart politics.
Steen ran two terms ago on the promise he would not raise taxes. He later was the Supe that made the motion to raise our taxes. Warnock gave Steen a big fat contribution that term and Steen reciprocated by making the motion to appoint Warnock as our County Engineer.
Steen was in the crooks' clique and voted with Banks, et. al. for many years. Then a few months before the last election, Steen was smart enough to sense the taxpayers were fed up being screwed and distanced himself from the clique. He campaigned on the promise he would get rid of Warnock if reelected. He was only able to fool enough voters to win by a measly 37 votes.
If Banks had been reelected, Steen would have joined back up with Banks and Griffin to resume ripping off our county. He would have flipped on his promise and kept Warnock on board (just like his promise to not raise taxes) . However, Bishop's coup changed all that. Now Steen can either vote with Trey, Sheila, and David and pretend he is a good guy or be a loser with Griffin.
Steen takes a lot of cash from contractors working for Madison County. Someone has to pay Heath Hall to tell Steen how to vote. $$$$$$ Steen "Cash Man" needs Heath Hall to help him..........
Hey 10:17 you mean someone other than the late "Eric Hammer" was required to pay Steen cash under the table? Hmmmm I wonder who is filling his easter basket this year?
Anon @ 1:16, you conveniently overlook the time limit on filing invoices with the county. And then there's those little details of work authorized but never done and no evidence of having been done. Well, other than notes created a year after the fact. Intelligent folks have a way of rooting that sort of stuff out when a culprit is sittin' in the testimony box - especially when there's junior staff in the wings ready to roll over.
Dorsey can talk to all these ancillary parties every day to assure their silence and confederacy. But, folks have a way of rolling over on the side of honesty when they hear the sounds of a courtroom. Something about the ring of 'not seeing your children for six months' sorta slaps a man upside the head.
April 2, 2016 at 10:36 PM, and April 4, 2016 at 8:54 AM: I always use my real name when posting here. If you are going to call me a crook, then you should have the cojones to do the same. Please message me at dcarson@thecarsonlawgroup.com when you grow a pair.
Before this is over I bet there will be a lot of blood on the battlefield. Oh, and a lot of money paid to lawyers and the tax payers will be the ones suffering. For once I wish we could elect public officials that were honest and looked after the little guy.
Mr. Carson: If it's true that everybody in Madison County who knows you're in concert with thieves has no balls, then there ain't a testicle in the county. While I did not call you a crook, Mr. Carson, we all know that lawyers find occasion to stay in touch with their witnesses, you know, just to prep them and be sure they 'understand' what you expect from them. All legal, of course....but slimy nonetheless.
If you think this group of junior engineers, former supervisors and a double-handful of members of 'the courthouse gang, won't hang your client's ass out to dry in the courtroom, you're more of an imbecile than you appear to be on this blog.
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