Attorneys: Conduct and Tactics

Conoco, Inc. v. Williams Insulation Co. [3/5/03] 2003 MTWCC 15 Attorneys have an obligation to fully inform the Court regarding essential facts and must avoid providing the Court with misleading half-truths.
Williams Insulation Co. v. DLI/UEF [6/7/02] 2002 MTWCC 33 Attorneys have an obligation to accurately and completely state the facts of a case.
Lyons v. Montana Power Company [2/12/99] 1999 MTWCC 16 Counsel's desire to litigate two cases together and soon does not justify failure to allow the opposing party time to assess and possibly meet a demand. Court condemns counterproductive hardball tactics.

Lyons v. Montana Power Company [2/11/99] 1999 MTWCC 15 The Court condemns the hard-ball litigation practice occurring in this case. This matter could have been resolved easily without litigation by communication between counsel. The approximately three hour deadline set by counsel for response to his demand was unnecessary, ill-mannered, and counterproductive. Montana Power Company is also at fault for not computing and paying benefits owed claimant instead of taking the position the matter would be resolved through litigation, though this fault is mitigated somewhat by the lack of clarity in the information provided by claimant regarding medical bills.
Murer, et al. v. State Fund [4/16/98] 1998 MTWCC 29 Because the WCC had failed to order that claimant's counsel could not use computer printouts provided to him by the insurer as a means for contacting potential plaintiffs for a bad faith case, counsel would not be held in contempt for that action, even though it was not contemplated by the parties and counsel acknowledged the listed individuals had rights of privacy. However, WCC was persuaded beyond any reasonable doubt that some statements made to the Court by counsel during the Court's inquiry into the matter were a smokescreen to conceal counsel's real purpose in the challenged conduct. Counsel found in contempt relating to those statements and was fined $500.