Law Firm Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads Sued Over Allegedly Inadequate Representation

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A proposed class action alleges that law firm Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, LLP and two of its attorneys failed to fulfill their obligation to provide a client with effective legal representation.

The suit, which was recently removed from state to federal court in Pennsylvania, focuses on a past case in which the law firm represented a group of Avoca, Pennsylvania residents who alleged they were “poisoned” by non-party Kerr-McGee Corporation’s nearby wood treatment factory.

In an effort to “sidestep” its financial responsibilities related to resolving the case, Kerr-McGee, the complaint explains, supposedly transferred billions of dollars’ worth of assets to a newly formed company and filed for bankruptcy. Given these complications, the Avoca residents hired the defendants, “who professed expertise in complex bankruptcy litigation,” to provide additional assistance to their legal team, the suit says.

The case claims that the law firm, however, failed to protect the Avoca residents from an “aggressive lawyer” who represented a group of similarly situated Mississippi property owners. According to the complaint, had the defendants properly performed their jobs and heeded the warnings of the Avoca group’s counsel, the Avoca residents would have received approximately $949 million from Kerr-McGee. Instead, the suit says that the Mississippi claimants succeeded in obtaining a significant chunk of the recovery amount—$619 million—leaving the Avoca residents with a “diminished total” of about $330 million. As a result, a member of the Avoca group has filed suit on the residents’ behalf seeking to recover from the defendants the additional $619 million he claims the proposed class was deprived of.