Patrick T. O'Connor, managing partner, Oliver Maner(Courtesy photo)

Ford Motor Co.'s lead counsel in a contentious roof crush case that ended in a mistrial has hired his own lawyer for dealing with sanctions issued by Gwinnett County State Court Judge Shawn Bratton.

Patrick T. O'Connor, managing partner of Oliver Maner in Savannah and a past president of the State Bar of Georgia, has entered an appearance as counsel for D. Alan Thomas of Huie Fernambucq & Stewart in Birmingham, Alabama.

Thomas has served as Ford's lead counsel in cases all over the region and the country, including the one filed by Kim and Adam Hill, surviving sons of Melvin and Voncile Hill who allege their parents died because their F250 Super Duty pickup truck had an unsafe roof and that the company knew it. The company denies the allegations and argues the roof was not at fault for the Hills' deaths.

O'Connor declined to comment on his appearance in the case.

Bratton granted Thomas pro hoc vice status to appear as an out-of-state lawyer in the case. But in an order sanctioning Ford for violating court orders after the mistrial, Bratton said he was considering rescinding permission to practice for Thomas.

“Before this case is scheduled for a second trial, the Court will convene a hearing at which Mr. Thomas will be required to show cause (1) why he should not be held in contempt of Court for his conduct outlined above, and (2) why his privilege to practice law in this Court should not be rescinded as a result of his trial conduct,” the order said.

Ford has appealed other sanctions contained in Bratton's order that prevent the company from defending itself on liability.

The Georgia Court of Appeals issued a one-sentence order Monday denying the plaintiffs' emergency motion to dismiss Ford's notice of appeal.

The briefs show Ford's team describing Bratton's sanctions as civil capital punishment and equating them with a contempt charge, which is appealable. Opposing counsel has called that strategy “nonsense” and a delay tactic, asserting that Ford should not be allowed to appeal until the case is tried again and a verdict reached.

Bratton declared a mistrial in April after Thomas led an expert witness into cause-of-death testimony that the judge had already ruled out. As punishment, Bratton precluded the company's defense against charges that it knowingly made a roof that was dangerously weak and deadly in a foreseeable rollover crash.

Ford said in a notice of appeal that Bratton's sanction is “in substance, intention, and effect, an order holding defendant in contempt of the court and is therefore directly appealable” under Georgia law.

“The imposition of impermissible death-penalty contempt sanctions, violating basic due process rights by adjudicating a controversy not based on the merits, constitutes an exceptional case justifying interlocutory review of the order, particularly in light of the trial court's blanket refusal to certify that or any order for immediate review—a practice consistently and without exception followed with each and every certificate of immediate review requested by Ford,” the company said in its notice of appeal.

Ford further reasoned that, if the sanctions order can be appealed, then so can “all prior orders and rulings that may affect the proceedings below.” Thus the company announced in the notice that it is also appealing 14 other orders by Bratton, saying they “and many others” are “reviewable in the same manner as a final order.”

Ford's appellate attorneys are William Withrow Jr., Pete Robinson and James Manley at Troutman Sanders. As lead counsel for Ford, Thomas works with Paul Malek, also of Huie Fernambucq & Stewart. The Ford legal team in the Hill case includes Michael Eady of Thompson Coe Cousins & Irons of Austin, Texas, and Atlanta lawyers Michael Boorman and Philip Henderson of Huff, Powell & Bailey.

Counsel for Kim and Adam Hill filed a request for special setting of a new trial date and opposition to what they claim are Ford's attempts to delay it.

The Hills' lead counsel is Jim Butler of Butler Wooten & Peak of Columbus and Atlanta. Butler's legal team includes Gerald Davidson Jr. of Mahaffey Pickens Tucker in Lawrenceville; Brandon Peak, David Rohwedder, Christopher McDaniel and Ramsey Prather of Butler Wooten; and Michael Gray of Walker, Hulbert, Gray & Moore in Perry. The Butler team has also added appellate lawyers Michael Terry and Frank Lowrey IV of Bondurant Mixson & Elmore.

“I've told my friend Pat that Thomas won't need a lawyer if we have anything to do with it,” Butler said Wednesday by email. “Plaintiffs oppose any sanction against Ford's lawyers: that is just a distraction.  Ford Motor Company dictated all that was done by Ford during the trial.  Ford was monitoring the trial on CVN; Ford's official corporate representative was there every minute – and as the sanctions order states, participated in the violations of the Court's Orders; and Ford's appeals lawyer was there every minute and participated in arguments.”

The Butler team said in filings that Ford's appeal effort “makes it even more clear that Ford intends to try to delay retrial as much as possible by attempted unauthorized appeals.”

The Butler team said the Hills “have a right to get a trial and a verdict” and cited another case the firm tried, Gibson v. Ford, in which the firm claims the company's lawyers delayed the trial for five years with preverdict appeals. That case finally ended in 2005 with a $13 million verdict. “Plaintiffs are opposed to piecemeal appellate review and should not be punished by further delay as a result of Ford's and Ford's lawyers' reprehensible behavior,” the Hill lawyers said in a brief.

Now, the matter of whether to revoke Thomas' pro hac vice admission, as well as the issue of a new trial, await further action from the Court of Appeals.