Carlos the Clown must pay up yet again. The Mississippi Court of Appeals ordered Carlos Moore to pay sanctions of $27,467 after he failed to appear in court for a trial because he had a "speaking engagement" in Texas. The Grenada attorney has been sanctioned three times since 2017. Two separate Bars censured and reprimanded him as well.
Mr. Moore sued a doctor and medical clinic in Leflore County Circuit Court on behalf of Lue Sanders in 2014. The attorney associated the law firm of Brown, Bass, & Jeter, PLLC on the lawsuit even though the Plaintiff never agreed to this association. The court set the trial to begin on September 5, 2017. It scheduled the trial on November 30, 2016.
Brown, Bass, & Jeter filed a motion to withdraw from the case on August 18, 2017. The court approved the withdrawal ten days later without objection from anyone. Then the fun started for Carlos the Clown.
Mr. Moore filed a motion to withdraw, motion to continue, and a motion to assert lien on Friday, September 1, 2017. That date was one business day before the start of the scheduled trial. The Grenada attorney claimed "he had a scheduling conflict and would be out of state on September 5, 2017." However, the order states that Mr. Moore "never stated the nature of his conflict." The defense would have none of a delay and "presented evidence that Attorney Moore had a speaking engagement in Texas on that day."
However, Mr. Moore was not through with making excuses to the court. He said that he had "a previous obligation for a trial commencing on September 12, 2017 in Shelby, County, Tennessee." However, the court found that the scheduling order for that trial was entered seven months after the scheduling order for the present case.
September 5, 2017 rolled around at the Leflore County Courthouse and everyone was present but Carlos Moore. Even the plaintiff was in court that day. Mr. Moore sent another lawyer to argue for a continuance. The court "reluctantly" granted the continuance but "asked the defendant to submit a cost bill for his attendance and his witnesses for their unnecessary trial preparation.
The defense said attorney's fees were $13,747 and expert witness fees were $13,720. The court ordered Mr. Moore to reimburse the defendant for the fees within thirty days. Moore appealed the sanctions but to no avail.
The Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court's sanctions on May 28. The Court was none too sympathetic towards The Clown's alleged scheduling conflict:
Moore had nine months to object to the trial date or to inform the circuit court of his scheduling conflict. But he made no action until days before Sanders’s trial and after Sanders’s associated counsel had already withdrawn. Further, Moore was not blind to the circuit court’s order allowing Brown, Bass & Jeter, PLLC to withdraw contingent upon Moore remaining as Sanders’s primary counsel of record. Moore made no objection to the withdrawal of counsel, thereby allowing the circuit court, and presumably his client, to assume that he would proceed to trial as scheduled on behalf of Sanders. Moore then moved to continue Sanders’s trial and to withdraw as Sanders’s counsel, at the final hour, after the Hospital had already incurred attorney’s fees and expert costs in preparation for trial. As the circuit court stated, Moore’s conduct was “highly irregular” because the trial date had been set for “quite some time.”...
The Court noted the client appeared at the trial. The Court lowered the hammer on Carlos the Clown:
Because Moore, not Sanders, committed the sanctionable offense, we find nothing inappropriate with the circuit court’s assessment of attorney’s fees and expert fees against Moore as a sanction in this matter. Accordingly, we find Moore’s argument to be without merit....
There were no dissenting votes.
Kingfish note: Hmmm..... let's see, how many times has Carlos the Clown gotten in trouble in the courtroom?
$3,000 sanctions in federal court. Moore didn't respond to discovery requests after he used anonymous phone calls and memos that don't exist to support his claims as well. Tupelo called his bluff on some rather sensational accusations made in the lawsuit. Moore admitted to lying about some of the more inflammatory charges.
$500 sanctions in federal court. Moore's client destroyed evidence and fabricated a case against Belhaven while Moore lied to the Federal Court.
The Tennessee Bar sanctioned Moore. The "attorney" placed liens on a client after she rejected his advice to accept a settlement offer.
Ths Mississippi Bar issued a public reprimand to Moore this year.
Then there is a lawsuit against the Rankin County School District that quietly disappeared last year. Moore made a big show out of filing a lawsuit against the District after a teacher said she used the phrase "hang him out to dry" in a classroom.
The list is getting longer and longer.
20 comments:
How does this clown still have a law license? What does this say about the Mississippi bar?
Just be sure to spell his name right. When you're a self-proclaimed crusader for justice, All publicity is Good publicity. He'll get more clients. Just spell his name right!
At this rate, Carlos could end up with a statue as the most sanctioned lawyer in the State of Mississippi. Of course, it would eventually have to be relocated.
How does this clown still have a law license? What does this say about the Mississippi bar?
"dey b skerred"
All Carlos needs is the one big case to get him on 60 Minutes or in the national news and he will become a celebrity lawyer. As long as he is not disbarred his past becomes irrelevant. As long as he gets publicity and the cases keep coming he will get a hit sooner or later. Just a matter of time.
Sad but true.
If you want high comedy, look at his LinkedIn posts. The Mississippi Bar is useless.
This clown really brings disrepute to the MS Bar and all members. The MS Bar association needs to act swiftly to stop the bleeding.
Carlos ain't the only one that needs his license revoked.
MS is the wild west when it comes to the legal profession.
He is the exception, not the rule, among MS lawyers.
This reflects just as bad on the State Bar Association and the courts. He respects nothing. A jail cell is appropriate.
Why the Bar doesn't act more forcefully against those who make a mockery of the profession, I simply don't understand. As said above, the more he gets away with it, the more emboldened he becomes (and the greater chance at "the big case.") Do you realize he was once voted the Young Lawyer of the Year by a section of the Bar? Unreal!
On a somewhat related issue, did someone in Carlos' office (or should I say Carlos's office) write the opinion for the Court of Appeals? "Sanders's?" Really? Wait, nevermind. Clearly, they must have hired Abby Robinson to write that one........
Umm... It's "Judge" Carlos Moore..
12:17 is behind the times. Most style guides dictate that the possessive form of Jones is Jones’s. Mississippi Supreme Court and Court of Appeals opinions use that possessive form. This link is one of many sources that supports that usage: https://www.lawprose.org/lawprose-lesson-111/
Since the Bar is toothless, why can't the Judiciary take care of Judge Moore?
He is a judge in two cities. So the Commission on Judicial Performance should be able to step up. Will they? Also, I agree with the other poster regarding the LinkedIn posts. If I represented anyone in his court I would have all of those saved to be attached to any appeal I would have from his court. Goes to show his judicial temperament and lack of objectivity. You can see when he makes statements or issues press releases when he’s representing a client that he’s thinking he’s doing it with the authority of a judge. That somehow his legal opinion is superior to all others.
It's called the good ole boy system. To be sure, Carlos is not one of the good ole boys. But the Mississippi Bar has throughout it's history established that certain "conduct outside the norm" would be frowned upon but tolerated so that the good ole boys would not be publicly embarrassed. When black lawyers came aboard the bar raised it's standards but still had to allow enough leniency to protect the old guard. Carlos is the latest beneficiary
of that leniency. It's irony that's all.
Unless a client makes a complaint or an attorney is convicted of a crime, the MBA has no authority to discipline.
9:24- The BAR will do everything in its power not to take a complaint. We tried to file a complaint on a attorney who also never showed up for court, even though everyone else was present and he had been paid. In fact, the attorney never responded but got a tongue lashing from the judge in Oxford.
Thought the BAR would be very interested in handling this but found the investigator making excuses for the attorney and doing his best to talk me out of filling a complaint.
There are many great attorneys out there but also a lot of professionally licensed thieves and deadbeats.
Kingfish, if you are not following Carlos on Linkedin, you are truly missing a gold mine of material. You can't make these posts up if you tried. This little nugget from 6 days ago is simply....well, I mean, res ipsa loquitor.......
Wow! I put my life on the line to fight to get the state flag changed to the tune of eight death threats and the Governor didn’t have the decency to invite me to the Governor’s Mansion to see him sign the historic bill removing the 1894 flag into law today. That’s alright. Just like I always knew the state flag would come down in my lifetime, I too know I will be Governor of Mississippi one day. Guess who won’t get an invitation to the mansion then?! #MarkMyWords #Believe #Achieve #ANewMississippi
How did this fella get to be president of the National Bar Association?
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