Disbarred Ex-Husband Ordered to Pay $240K in Attorney’s Fees

Tennessee case summary on attorney’s fee in divorce.

JILL ST. JOHN-PARKER v. VIRGIL DUANE PARKER

The husband and wife in this Bradley County, Tennessee, case were married for over twenty years before their divorce.  The husband was an attorney, the wife was a CPA, and they accumulated a large estate during the marriage.  The husband, for example, purchased a 400-acre ranch for about $3 million, and the wife remained in the marital residence, which was worth over a million dollars.  The case generated much litigation, including appeals in 2016 and 2018.

During much of the litigation, the trial court found that the husband lacked credibility.  The husband had been disbarred in Maryland, and disciplined in Tennessee for dishonesty and fraud.

The litigation included the wife’s petition for contempt, which had been filed in 2015.  At one point, the husband wired over a quarter million dollars to a law firm in Maryland where his friend was employed.  At this same time, the husband was failing to pay his $3000 per month alimony.  The ranch was also placed into a living trust.

Ultimately, the husband wound up in bankruptcy court, and the wife retained an attorney who specialized in bankruptcy.  In 2017, she filed another contempt petition over retroactive alimony.  At trial, the wife presented testimony from her expert witness, accountant Daniel Peterson, who testified as to the flow of funds through the husband’s accounts.

The wife’s bankruptcy attorney also testified, and said that in his 33 years of practicing law, he had never seen anything remotely approaching the husband’s outrageous conduct.  He also testified that his attorney’s fees in the bankruptcy case were over $100,000.

After hearing the evidence, the trial court concluded that the husband had “zero credibility,” and that he had concealed funds, including the $260,000 he had wired to Maryland.  The husband was found in contempt and sentenced to 120 days in jail.

After tallying up the wife’s attorney’s fees, the trial court concluded that they were approximately a quarter million dollars, and ordered the husband to pay that amount.  The husband then tried his luck by filing another appeal with the Tennessee Court of Appeals.

The husband argued that, even though it might be proper to award attorney’s fees in the state court action, the state court had no authority to award attorney fees incurred in the federal bankruptcy court.  But the appeals court pointed to other cases in which enforcement of a divorce court obligation takes place in another court.  It cited, for example, a case involving fees in the juvenile court regarding attorney’s fees awarded in the divorce court.

While there were no prior cases directly on point, the court did find a bankruptcy case where the bankruptcy court acknowledged that its fees could be collected in a state court.

After reviewing numerous cases, the appeals court concluded that the award of bankruptcy attorney’s fees can be appropriate in a divorce proceeding.  Therefore, it rejected the husband’s argument in this regard.

The appeals court also found that an award of the fee for the expert witness accountant was proper.

Finally, the appeals court reviewed all of the evidence in the case and agreed with the lower court that the award of attorney’s fees was appropriate given the facts of the case.  In fact, it went a step further and awarded the wife additional attorney fees for the appeal.  For these reasons, it affirmed the lower court’s ruling and remanded the case.

No. E2018-01536-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Mar. 27,  2020).

See original opinion for exact language.  Legal citations omitted.

To learn more, see The Tennessee Divorce Process: How Divorces Work Start to Finish.