Nine months after the news of a $44 million settlement for a rural Texas oil worker severely injured on a Pennsylvania rig, lawyers from the two states are still litigating over how to split the fee and where to make that decision.

Their money remains in dispute, but their fight is going to stay in Philadelphia, a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Joshua D. Wolson of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania denied a request to move the matter to the Eastern District of Texas from Randell Roberts and Roberts & Roberts.

Roberts is a partner with Roberts & Roberts in Tyler, Texas—halfway between Dallas and Shreveport in an area of East Texas known as Piney Woods.

Roberts is the lawyer for James Burgess and his wife, Kay Sharon Burgess, hired to represent them in 2013 after James Burgess was permanently paralyzed by a light falling on his head and breaking his neck. But the case had to be litigated in Pennsylvania because that’s where James Burgess was working when he was hurt. Later in the year, Roberts attended a seminar in California and met Thomas Sheridan of the Philadelphia plaintiffs firm Sheridan & Murray. They discussed the Burgess case in California, then followed up with emails about a referral fee agreement and an engagement.

Ultimately, Sheridan & Murray did take on the case, which settled for $44 million with five companies involved in the work at the oil rig. But Roberts and Sheridan continue to dispute the terms of their referral fee agreement.

Sheridan is being represented in the fee dispute by Mark Tanner of Feldman Shepherd Wohlgelernter Tanner Weinstock Dodig and Abe Reich of Fox Rothschild in Philadelphia.

Tanner said Friday the ruling was not unexpected.

“It was a jurisdictional dispute,” Tanner said. “The judge correctly recognized that a dispute over a case in Pennsylvania ought to be handled in Pennsylvania.”

Tanner said the two lawyers had a referral agreement, but after the case settled Roberts wanted more.

Justin Roberts of the Roberts Firm said there is more to the story.

“Mr. Tanner correctly states that the two lawyers had a written referral agreement, but he fails to mention that on the eve of settlement, Mr. Sheridan fraudulently induced Mr. Roberts to change that agreement—purportedly to help the clients, when it was only to benefit Mr. Sheridan,” Justin Roberts said. “In short, Mr. Sheridan took advantage of Mr. Roberts’s history of doing anything he can to help his clients. Mr. Sheridan then sued Mr. Roberts in an effort to avoid paying the customary referral fee in these types of cases.”

The judge rejected Roberts’ argument that Pennsylvania has no jurisdiction over the matter.

“The totality of the circumstances supports this court’s specific jurisdiction over the Roberts Firm. First, the Roberts Firm purposefully directed its activities at Sheridan & Murray. It communicated with Sheridan & Murray prior to entering into the referral agreement and after its formation,” Wolson said. “Moreover, by referring the clients to Sheridan & Murray and entering into a referral agreement, the Roberts Firm set in motion litigation in Pennsylvania from which the Roberts Firm hoped to profit.”

The judge did agree with Roberts that James and Kay Burgess cannot travel to Philadelphia to litigate the dispute. He’s been in a hospital for years and she has driven 90 miles each way from their home to visit him every day. But the judge shut down Roberts’ characterization of them as “critical” witnesses.

“The clients themselves are not parties to the referral agreements,” Wolson said.

The case is Sheridan v. Roberts.