By: Derek Hawkins//August 26, 2019//
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Case Name: W. James Mac Naughton v. Ishaihu Harmelech, et al.
Case No.: 18-2389; 18-2467; 18-2468; 18-2855
Officials: RIPPLE, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.
Focus: Consolidated Appeal
The complex background of these consolidated appeals burrows through over a decade of litigation. Russian Media Group sued Ishaihu Harmelech and his company (“Harmelech Defendants”) in 2006. Attorney W. James Mac Naughton actively represented the Harmelech Defendants in this case (“RMG Action”) for ten weeks ten years ago. The relationship ended in a dispute over his fees. After he withdrew, the case settled with the entry of a consent judgment against his former clients ago. The relationship ended in a dispute over his fees. After he withdrew, the case settled with the entry of a consent judgment against his former clients. Mac Naughton then pursued his former clients for money in myriad ways. One maneuver he used was acquiring rights to the judgment entered against his former clients in the RMG Action, the very matter in which he previously represented them. He then sought to collect this judgment by filing multiple other cases and by seeking to reopen the RMG Action.
In December 2014, Mac Naughton and Casco Bay (his company) sued Harmelech and his son to collect the RMG Judgment and to set aside the conveyance of property on Sunnyside Avenue (“Sunnyside Action”). In March 2015, Judge Holderman disqualified Mac Naughton from attempting to collect this judgment personally and from representing Casco Bay in its attempts to collect it. But Mac Naughton defied that order and continued his efforts. In June 2018, Judge Feinerman (to whom this case had been transferred) dismissed the claims predicated on this judgment as a sanction for Mac Naughton’s willful defiance of the Holderman Order.
In September 2016, Mac Naughton sued Alden Management and others to collect for himself money owed to his former client (“Alden Action”). Judge Blakey dismissed this case as a sanction for violating court orders. In January 2017, Mac Naughton sued his former clients to set aside a conveyance of property in Palm Harbor (“Palm Harbor Action”). Judge Durkin dismissed this case on the same grounds as Judge Feinerman dismissed the Sunnyside Action. Judge Durkin also rejected Mac Naughton’s attempt to reopen the RMG Action. In sum, the district judges in the four cases consolidated here rejected Mac Naughton’s efforts to collect the RMG Judgment entered against his former clients. We affirm.
Affirmed