A Houston law firm has hit back against four former clients' legal malpractice lawsuit, claiming they've made false allegations about the firm's handling of transvaginal mesh aggregate settlements.

"Plaintiffs' claims are meritless," said Clark, Love & Hutson's Sept. 13 answer.

The four plaintiffs are women from California, Georgia and Indiana who were represented by the firm and its three partners in earlier transvaginal mesh lawsuits. They alleged in Alvarado v. Clark, Love & Hutson that the defendants botched the statute of limitations in their cases, and rather than telling them, lumped their cases into aggregate settlements. They claimed if their cases weren't time-barred and had gone to trial, they could have recovered $20.9 million each, instead of the $11,000 to $69,000 they kept after paying costs and attorney fees.

Since those plaintiffs made the allegations, another California woman filed a nearly identical case, Johnson v. Clark, Love & Hutson, against the same defendants. Clark Love has filed an unopposed motion to consolidate the two cases.

Defense lawyer Dale Jefferson said none of the five plaintiffs can prove their allegation—that they lost all or part of damages based on the statute of limitations in their underlying pelvic mesh matters.

"Statute of limitations is an affirmative defense that has to be raised by the defendants and won by the defendants," said Jefferson, partner in Martin, Disiere, Jefferson & Wisdom in Houston. "There's a real easy question, which is: Give me the name of a case where Clark, Love & Hutson lost a motion for summary judgment on limitations. I've asked the plaintiffs' lawyers, and they can't."

In a Sept. 13 answer, Clark Love argued that the plaintiffs' previous settlements went through an approval process with special masters and a judge's determination that their settlements were fair and reasonable.

"Plaintiffs resort to demonstrably false allegations of wrongdoing against the defendants that have little to do with the process that resulted in independent determinations that each of their settlements was fair and made after appropriate disclosures by the defendants, which disclosures were similarly scrutinized and found to comply with applicable aggregate settlement rules, case law and ethics provisions," the answer said.

Clark Love denied that the four plaintiffs' claims were barred by limitations while the firm represented them. The answer calls the plaintiffs' pleadings either intentionally false, or alleges that plaintiffs attorneys Jim Beggs and Lynda Landers failed to do a reasonable investigation before filing the case.

"Nothing the defendants would say would be based in truth," wrote Beggs Landers partner Lynda Landers, who represents the plaintiffs, in an email.

The firm's partners—Clayton Clark, Scott Love and Shelley Hutson—filed nearly identical answers. Other defendants, lawyers James Lee Jr. and Erin Murphy and their practice, the Lee Murphy Law Firm, haven't been served with the lawsuit.

Lee and Murphy each didn't return a call or email seeking comment before deadline.

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State Court Case

Separately, there's been some movement in a case that Clark Love filed against Beggs and Landers, the legal malpractice attorneys for the pelvic mesh clients. The firm alleged the lawyers stole client lists and used them to solicit clients improperly to sue the firm for legal malpractice.

Shortly after it was filed, Beggs and Landers removed it to federal court. But a federal judge boomeranged it back to Wharton County District Court, finding there was no basis for federal removal.

Clark Love then won a temporary injunction ordering Beggs and Landers to stop using false, misleading ads, refrain from using the firm's trade secrets to solicit its clients, and more, said Billy Shepherd, who represents the firm.

Shepherd, a member manager in Shepherd Prewett in Houston, also noted that the state judge denied Beggs and Landers a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, which they are appealing to Corpus Christi's 13th Court of Appeals.

Read Clark, Love & Hutson's answer:

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