Terrance D Dunmire

Terrance Dunmire

Let me relate what really happened. I was retained in 1999 by a gentleman named Ron who owned a business in Tucson. He had been sued by a business broker for an alleged breach of a listing agreement for the sale of the business. Ron had signed a listing agreement with the broker who failed to produce a buyer for the business as he indicated he would forcing Ron to take on a partner -Steve became that partner. Steve was dragged into the litigation by the broker and wanted to join with Ron against the claims by the broker. Ron agreed to allow Steve to join with him and have me also represent Steve provided Steve sign a waiver of conflict of interest as well as an agreement to equally share the cost of my services which he did. Steve’s position was that he would not consider settling the lawsuit by paying any sum of money – he was outraged by the lawsuit and vowed to defeat the brokers claim at any cost. Ron had filed a counter claim against the broker based on the broker’s breach of fiduciary duty and retained an expert to support that claim. Ron’s expert was and is a very well respected attorney in Arizona practicing primarily in the Tucson area where the case had been filed. Ron’s expert testified at trial to the standard of care required of brokers and detailed how the broker had breached those duties. The case was tried to a jury and went for five days - it was hotly contested and the broker had very competent counsel. Unfortunately, just prior to submitting the case to the jury the Judge took it upon herself to dismiss our counter claim, a decision I disagreed with and argued against. Nevertheless, had it not been for the evidence we were able to put on in support of the counterclaim, our expert testimony in particular, it is very possible we would not have prevailed with the jury as we did. The jury came back with a defense verdict in our favor shocking the broker and his lawyer who had been crowing over their expected victory and what they anticipated would be a $50,000 plus damages verdict on top of an award by the judge of $100,000 for attorneys fees incurred by the broker. The fact of the matter is that we prevailed with the jury on a very difficult case with a lot at stake- if we had not prevailed with the jury Steve would have been stuck with a judgment against him in the approximate amount of $150,000 on top of the amount in attorneys fees he owed me for representing him in the dispute. Ron was elated at having prevailed in the lawsuit. Steve on the other hand was looking for ways to avoid having to pay me what he owed me. If Steve had paid me or even made an effort to compromise with me, there were causes of action I could have pursued to recoup the attorneys fees and other damages resulting from the lawsuit. Steve however refused to communicate with me leaving me no opportunity to confer with him regarding his available remedies and I certainly could not have exercised those available remedies without Steve’s authorization. Ultimately I offered to resolve the matter of my outstanding legal fees thru the State Bar Association fee arbitration program, a client friendly forum geared to assist the public with fee disputes with lawyers. Steve agreed to arbitrate the matters in dispute and we presented our cases to the three person panel that had been appointed by the State Bar Association. The panel determined that Steve’s claims were without merit and awarded me the fees I was owed. Steve nevertheless persisted in his refusal to resolve his obligation to me and caused me to hire a collections lawyer to pursue him. At any step along the way I would have been willing to work something out with him if he would have made an effort but he did not. It is exceedingly rare that I have had to take measures of this sort to protect my interest but Steve left me no choice. It is apparent that Steve does not like taking responsibility for his actions and is not happy having been held to account for his obligations.