(Aug. 6) – A $100 million business divorce case in which a Dallas probate judge is accused of having a secret relationship with an attorney in the case is headed back to court for a possible new trial.
The Fifth Court of Appeals in Dallas has ordered the Dallas Probate Court to reopen the estate battle over the trust controlling an industrial warehouse to allow lawyers for the plaintiff, Robert Thomas, to conduct hearings to confirm their allegations that the judge who ruled against their client had an improper personal and professional association with a lawyer for the defense.
In July 2015, Dallas Probate Judge John Peyton Jr. ruled against Thomas in a battle with his sister, Robyn Thomas Conlon, over control of the assets. The judgment is now on appeal.
But the case took a bizarre twist in early 2017 when plaintiff’s lawyers filed motions in the case stating they had evidence that Judge Peyton was having a romantic relationship with attorney Mary Burdette, one of the lawyers representing the defendants.
Wes Holmes, a lawyer for Thomas, asked another probate judge to grant them the right to gather and present evidence about the alleged improper relationship in order to show that their client did not get a fair trial.
“This is a sad situation all around,” Holmes said Friday. “If we can prove the relationship between the judge and the lawyer, we get a new trial.”
Lawyers for the defendants countered that the judge and the lawyer were just close friends at the time of the trial and only became sexual after the trial was over. But they also argued that the relationship was irrelevant because it would not change the evidence or the final judgment in the case.
While the Dallas Probate Court ruled against Thomas, a three-judge panel of the Fifth Court of Appeals disagreed.
“Taking appellant’s allegations, together with inferences reasonably drawn from them, as true, appellant’s petition for a bill of review complains he was denied the right to a fair trial by a neutral and detached judge because the judge and an attorney of record for the prevailing party had an undisclosed personal relationship that was sufficient to ‘constitute attorney and judicial misconduct which destroyed the integrity of the proceedings leading to the Judgment and denied [appellant] of his due process rights,’” Justice Craig Stoddart wrote.
Justices Elizabeth Lang-Miers and Robert Fillmore joined Stoddart in his opinion.
“We conclude appellant’s allegations of judicial and attorney misconduct that violated his right to due process and precluded him from fully litigating his case are sufficient to survive a rule 91a motion to dismiss,” the court ruled.
Holmes said that the plaintiffs believe that a new trial will bring different results.
“Judge Peyton let in inflammatory and inadmissible evidence at trial,” he said. “We believe that a new trial with a new judge will mean a different decision.”
Lawyers for the defendants declined to comment on the decision.