Michael Pohl, a Houston plaintiff’s lawyer sued earlier this month in a petition alleging a “barratry pyramid scheme,” has been named in two other state court suits alleging that he and others engaged in a joint venture to unlawfully solicit automobile accident clients.
The plaintiffs in one of the suits also allege that Houston plaintiff’s lawyer Robert Ammonsand his Ammons Law Firm “knowingly associated” with Pohl on cases obtained through barratry.
Neither Ammons nor Pohl immediately returned telephone messages seeking a comment on the allegations.
In a petition filed on June 20 in the 55th District Court in Harris County, a former client and his mother-in-law allege that Pohl and his firm, the Law Office of Michael Pohl, Pohl’s wife Donalda and marketing companies Precision Marketing and Helping Hands Financing, participated in the barratry joint venture. Four of the plaintiffs’ family members were killed in a car accident in Louisiana in 2014.
“Pohl, Donna and the Pohl Firm operated teams of case runners who traveled all over the country as putative representatives of Precision Marketing and Helping Hands Financing, offering accident victims money if they hired Pohl and the Pohl Firm for their personal injury claims,” the plaintiffs allege in the petition. “The runners often pretended to be family members to they could get into hospital ICU rooms to see victims, and appeared at funerals pretending to be acquaintances of the deceased victims.”
Plaintiffs Luella Miller and Mark Kentrell Cheatham Sr., both of Louisiana, also allege in Cheatham v. Pohl that Ammons and his firm “knowingly associated with Pohl on several vehicle accident cases that were procured through barratry.”
Cheatham and Miller seek more than $800,000 in statutory damages, unspecified punitive damages and fee forfeiture from the defendants. They bring civil barratry, civil conspiracy and aiding and abetting and breach of fiduciary duty causes of action against the defendants, and claim that Pohl and others engaged in commercial bribery.
The plaintiffs allege in their petition that they were personally visited and solicited by individuals associated with Precision Marketing and Helping Hands Financing, and Cheatham ultimately signed a contingency fee agreement with Pohl’s firm after signing a funding agreement with Helping Hands and a separate agreement to investigate his claims for $400 an hour and up to 40 percent of any recovery from litigation. Cheatham received $18,000 under the funding agreement.
A few weeks later, the plaintiffs allege, they were personally solicited by Pohl and Ammons, and Cheatham signed a consent agreement to allow Ammons to associate with Pohl on his wrongful death suit.
The plaintiffs allege the lawyers filed a suit for Cheatham in 2015, and they settled with most of the defendants, but Cheatham terminated the relationship in April 2017 after he learned that Pohl and Ammons had attempted to settle with one of the defendants without his full knowledge and consent.
Cheatham and Miller claim that Helping Hands Financing was a “sham ‘financing’ company” that operated as a cover for the “barratry organization” by offering to pay the victim or the family money for living or funeral expenses if they signed a representation contract with Pohl and his firm. They assert that Heaping Hands Financing is now dissolved, but Donalda Pohl owned and operated the entity.
Donalda Pohl did not immediately respond to a message left for her at the Law Office of Michael Pohl.
They allege Precision Marketing was a “sham company” formed to provide attorneys with “illegal and improper barratry services.”
In the second suit, filed on June 5 in the 113th District Court in Harris County, plaintiff Mae Berry claims that Pohl, his wife, his firm and Helping Hands Financing were engaged in a joint venture to unlawfully solicit her in connection with the death of her son in a vehicle accident in 2014. Berry alleges she signed a financing agreement with Helping Hands and received a $500 payment, but neither a runner nor any of the defendants contacted her again.
Berry seeks a total of more than $400,000 in damages including $240,000 in statutory damages in Berry v. Pohl. She brings aiding and abetting, civil barratry and civil conspiracy causes of action against Pohl, his wife and his firm.
Lance Kassab, a founder of Houston’s Kassab Law Firm who represents the plaintiffs in both cases, said he expects to file several other suits making similar allegations.