Brent Coon of Brent Coon & Associates (Photo: John Everett)

Alleging "nefarious and unethical conduct," Beaumont trial lawyer Brent Coon has sued Gary Riebschlager, a former lawyer at his firm, over fees from the settlement of a wrongful death suit stemming from a refinery explosion.

In a June 11 petition filed in state district court in Harris County, Coon also alleges that Oklahoma lawyer Brett Agee and his firm, Garvin, Agee, Carlton & Mashburn, filed a frivolous lawsuit against him in Oklahoma when seeking to collect an 8% local counsel fee from the settlement.

Coon, founder of Brent Coon & Associates, seeks unspecified damages.

As alleged in the petition, Riebschlager was employed by Brent Coon & Associates from September 2009 through September 2014, when he left to form his own firm. As part of a negotiated departure agreement, Coon alleges, Reibschlager was to continue to work on a 2013 lawsuit related to the 2012 deaths of Russell Mann and Billy Smith at a refinery in Oklahoma.

When Billy Smith's wife agreed to a settlement in 2017 and an agreed judgment in 2018, Riebschlager signed on behalf of himself and his firm, but also for Brent Coon & Associates. Coon alleges Reibschlager did so without his permission.

Coon alleges in the petition that Riebschlager has failed and refused to give Brent Coon & Associates any information about the settlement, or pay the firm its share of the money.

He also alleges that the lawsuit Agee filed in Oklahoma to collect a share of the fee is based on an "altered" document, which violates rules of professional conduct in Oklahoma and Texas, and argues Agee did not do any legal work on the underlying suit that settled.

In an interview on Friday, Reibschlager disputed Coon's allegations, and said, "I may owe him a small amount of money but don't owe him what he claims."

Reibschlager said that terms of the departure agreement give Brent Coon & Associates 40% of fees from lawsuits he handled after leaving the firm, but that Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct would require lawyers at Conn's firm to do a proportional amount of work on the litigation.

"He didn't do 1% of the work," Riebschlager said of Coon, noting that he put $271,000 of the fee in an account until the fee dispute can be resolved.

In an interview on Friday, Coon said he's owed "several hundred thousand dollars," because his firm did "more than its share" of the work on the suit. He characterized Reibschlager's comments as "revisionist history."

Agee, a shareholder of Garvin Agee, did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

Coon brings breach of contract, conversion, breach of good faith and fair dealing and tortious  interference with contractual relationship causes of action against Riebschlager and seeks an accounting of all cases that were a part of his departure agreement.

Additionally, Coon alleges multiple causes of action against Agee, including filing a frivolous lawsuit, abuse of process, defamation and false light, fraud, misrepresentation and a civil conspiracy cause of action against Agee and his firm.

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