Tragic End

Tragic End

By David R. Corder

Associate Editor

Hugh Lee Wood Jr. died two days after a New Year's Eve fire at his home on his 48th birthday. News of the Miami nursing home litigator's death overshadowed the settlement reached weeks earlier in a dispute that had split the statewide law firm he co-founded in 1998.

The settlement had quieted an action by Tampa attorney Andrew McCumber to involuntarily dissolve the firm he'd co-founded with Wood, George Quintairos and Edward Prieto, all of Miami. The firm had offices in Miami, Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville.

Previous efforts by the partners to resolve the dispute had resulted in claims and counterclaims in state and federal courts in Hillsborough County. Depending on which lawyer you asked, the dispute was either mutinous or a simple business divorce, according to court records.

Either way, says Audrey Wood, the attorney's widow, the surviving principals want to move past all that has happened. That's evident, she says, from their actions at her late husband's funeral.

"It's just friends who couldn't reach an agreement and wish they could have," she says. "There were no enemies. There were only adversaries and competitors. Now everyone wants to put it behind them."

None of the partners returned telephone calls to GCBR for comment.

The settlement satisfied those involved, says Eric Boyer, who joined Wood, Quintairos and Prieto after the split to form Quintairos Prieto Wood & Boyer PA.

He declined to discuss the deal or the dispute until he spoke with McCumber, who has formed Tampa's McCumber Inclan Daniels Valdez Buntz & Ferrera PA.

"Everything has been amicably resolved," Boyer says. "It's something we would like to get behind us."

Quintairos' ouster

The dispute apparently began two years before McCumber filed his 2003 dissolution action in the Hillsborough County courts. In court records, McCumber describes how he, Prieto and Wood became concerned about Quintairos' "lack of positive involvement and participation" as the majority shareholder in what was Quintairos McCumber Prieto & Wood PA.

In June 2003, Prieto and Wood approached McCumber at an Orlando trade show about a plan to oust Quintairos, court records state. An ouster required each of their votes as 20% shareholders in the firm. Quintairos owned 40%.

Two months later, the three met to discuss a reorganization plan. At the meeting, according to court records, "significant disagreements erupted" among them. A day later, they agreed a business dissolution was the best way to settle the matter.

From there, accounts differ. They soon accused each other of violating an agreement not to contact clients about the split. Allegations all four later denied.

McCumber claimed Quintairos, Prieto and Wood told clients he had resigned. Then McCumber learned that Quintairos would rejoin Wood and Prieto to form the new Miami firm. At one point, the Miami partners turned off all of the Tampa attorneys' cell phones.

Quintairos, Prieto and Wood claimed that McCumber embarked on an aggressive plan to recruit clients and member attorneys for his new firm, according to court records.

By late October 2003, however, each side had reached a partial settlement in the state action. McCumber would receive a $750,000 advance on his share of the Quintairos McCumber firm until the partners could agree on the valuation of shares. He also agreed to sign a sublease on the firm's Tampa office.

Then apparently the former partners hit a snag over the sublease. The Miami firm even persuaded Circuit Judge Claudia Isom to schedule a contempt hearing against McCumber and the Tampa firm over the sublease dispute. That didn't happen because Isom recused herself.

In response to McCumber's apparent refusal to sign the lease, the Quintairos Prieto firm filed a federal court action in Tampa. It accused McCumber and his new firm of interfering with employee and client relationships and unauthorized access to computer servers in the Tampa office. McCumber denied the allegations.

Threat of disclosure

By last fall, the litigation reached a turning point. McCumber and the Tampa firm lost a critical battle in state court. Then the Miami partners lost a battle in the federal court.

In late September, Circuit Judge Emmett Battles granted the Miami partners' motion to strike McCumber's amended complaint for an involuntary corporate dissolution. Then Battles denied McCumber's motion to enforce terms of the October 2003 settlement agreement. He also ordered each side to pay their own legal costs.

About the same time, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Wilson rejected the Miami partners' motion for a protective order. They wanted to block the Tampa firm's access to confidential business information

At a Sept. 28 hearing, Wilson expressed a narrow view of the Miami partners' request, court transcripts show. He rejected the partners' bid to shield a schedule of payroll adjustments the Miami firm made around the time the dispute originally occurred. Records show the Miami partners had spent nearly $300,000 in salary increases to prevent key employees from leaving the firm and joining McCumber.

In reaction to the court rulings, lawyers for each side apparently encouraged their clients to resume settlement talks. The Miami partners had retained a Holland & Knight LLP team headed by Tampa lawyer Brian Albritton. McCumber retained Laura Howard and Stanford Solomon of Tampa's Solomon Tropp Group PA.

Neither state nor federal court records contain much detail about the negotiations. On Dec. 14, U.S. District Judge Steven Merryday signed an order dismissing the federal lawsuit pursuant to a settlement agreement.

On Jan. 3, the day after Woods' death, Battles signed an order dismissing all state court actions pursuant to a settlement agreement.

McCumber's new firm has 13 lawyers in Tampa, four in Orlando and five in Jacksonville.

Meanwhile, homicide detectives completed their investigation into the death of Wood who was home alone at the time of the fire, says Miami-Dade County police spokesman Randy Rossman. But fire investigators have not closed their investigation.

The fire's origin remains something of a mystery. It started around 8:30 p.m. on the patio adjacent to a bedroom where Wood was sleeping, says Miami-Dade fire spokesman Lt. Eric Baum. Wood received burns to 70% of his body.

"The cause of the fire is undetermined at this time," Baum says. "We're fairly confident it started outside and went into the bedroom. The destruction to the rear corner of the house is such that we won't be able to determine the cause of the fire at this time."

Such a determination doesn't imply anything suspicious, Baum adds. It just means arson investigators could not prove it was accidental.

"The physical evidence was destroyed in the fire," he says. "Any time we have a fire investigation report that is complete we will release that to the public. However, in this case it's undetermined. So it stays opens."