A Texas woman sued Houston's Stern Law Group and two of its attorneys this week, alleging her personal injury suit was dismissed because they missed a filing deadline and failed to tell her, and claiming defendant Jeffrey Stern offered her $5,000 to stop her from hiring another lawyer.

Elida Rodriguez claims in a petition filed Thursday in state district court in Harris County that her meritorious personal injury claim was “forever lost” due to legal malpractice. She seeks up to $1 million in damages.

“To make matters worse, defendants concealed their failures from their own client and underhandedly tried to force her into settling any potential future legal malpractice claims against them,” the petition asserts. “This is a case of neglect turned deception.”

The defendants in Rodriguez v. Flood are Stern Law Group, founder Stern and attorney Adam Flood. Neither Stern nor Flood immediately responded to messages seeking comment.

As alleged in the petition, Rodriguez hired Stern and his firm to represent her in a personal injury suit after she injured her knee stepping in a pothole outside a Sam's Club in McAllen, which is in the Rio Grande Valley.

The firm filed a lawsuit in Hidalgo County against Sam's Club on her behalf, and Rodriguez alleges Flood was listed as her lead counsel. However, according to the petition, the defendants failed to respond to a motion for summary judgment filed by Sam's, and the judge dismissed her premises liability claim and in March denied a motion to reconsider filed by the defendants.

Rodriguez alleges the defendants “purposely concealed their negligence” from her, and she did not learn the case had been dismissed until she visited the Stern Law Group office in May.

At that point, she asked the defendants for her file and informed them she intended to hire another lawyer. She alleges the defendants repeatedly asked her to come to the firm to discuss her case with Stern. Rodriguez claims that when she met with Stern, he “attempted to take advantage of his uninformed client, offering her $5,000 to settle any potential claim without [knowing] the nature of implications of the settlement or to seek out another lawyer.”

Rodriguez brings negligence, gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty causes of action against the defendants and alleges they violated the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act. She seeks up to $1 million in actual damages, plus punitive damages and treble damages for intentional and knowing violations of the DTPA.

The Kassab Law Firm of Houston represents Rodriguez. “It's just a case of neglect turned to deception,” said David Kassab, a lawyer at the firm.

Nearly a decade ago, Stern was indicted on two charges of solicitation of capital murder of his wife, Yvonne Stern. However, a judge in Houston dismissed those charges in 2012, and an ex-girlfriend of Stern's pleaded guilty to solicitation of capital murder and was sentenced to 20 years.