MONROE, La. – Several Fourth Judicial District Court judges who were sued for allegedly conspiring to conceal criminal activity at the court claim the Monroe businessman seeking damages from them flouted a protective order by publicly disclosing testimony alleging corruption in the judiciary.
In an April 7 memorandum, local court officials complained the local businessman, Stanley Palowsky III, should not have published certain quotes from testimony by Fourth Judicial District Court Judge Sharon Marchman and others.
As previously reported, a recent filing by Palowsky disclosed Marchman testified in a deposition that Second Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Milton Moore III of Monroe had exhibited bias toward Palowsky’s father in prior litigation.
According to Marchman, two judges informed of her Moore’s attempts to influence other judges to issue adverse rulings against Palowsky’s father, Stanley Palowsky Jr.
Marchman also testified that Moore chided First Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Michael McDonald for ruling in Palowsky’s favor in the businessman’s lawsuit against local court officials.
In 2015, Palowsky sued law clerk Allyson Campbell for concealing or destroying documents he filed at the court in a separate lawsuit against a former partner in an environmental remediation company.
According to excerpts from Marchman’s testimony in Palowsky’s March 26 memorandum, Marchman claimed McDonald, of the First Circuit, told her about Moore calling him and chiding him at a time when Campbell had a pending motion before the First Circuit.
Weeks after suing Campbell in 2015, Palowsky added legal claims against five judges, including Fred Amman, Ben Jones, Wilson Rambo, Carl Sharp, Stephens Winters. Amman, Jones and Sharp have since retired from the bench, though Jones now serves as the court administrator.
According to Palowsky, the five defendant judges sought to conceal Campbell’s activities at the court.
The lawsuit, Stanley R. Palowsky III and others v. Allyson Campbell and others, recently entered the discovery phase in which parties to the lawsuit began gathering evidence in advance of a trial. Earlier this year, Palowsky began taking depositions, or sworn testimony outside of a courtroom
In their April 7 reply memorandum, the defendant judges claimed Palowsky wrongfully sought documents from Laura Hartt, the court’s former administrator, and Julie Cunningham, the court’s deputy administrator.
The judges have filed a motion to quash the subpoenas to Hartt and Cunningham to prevent the pair from producing certain documents or testifying about certain matters in the Campbell lawsuit.
“Despite clear rulings and Orders from this Honorable Court setting out the boundaries for discovery, Mr. Palowsky has continually ignored such directives at every single deposition,” stated the judges’ reply memorandum.
The depositions and other forms of discovery are off-limits to the public in light of boundaries imposed in a September 2020 protective order signed by retired Judge Jerry Barbera, of Thibodaux. Barbera is presiding over the Campbell lawsuit as an ad hoc judge.
Palowsky has challenged the scope of Barbera’s protective order, and the businessman’s appeal is currently pending at the Second Circuit Court of Appeal in Shreveport.
In his March 26 memorandum, Palowsky included several excerpts from Marchman and Hartt’s depositions to support his argument that the defendant judges were trying to limit the scope of the upcoming trial.
The defendant judges, however, argued that Palowsky’s memorandum quoted significant portions of the depositions to harass people, including Moore.
“Rather than addressing the straight-forward and narrow legal issue presented in the Judges’ Motion to Quash, Mr. Palowsky and his counsel have taken the opportunity to assert scandalous, impertinent and even defamatory claims against several nonparties, including at least one appellate court judge,” stated the judges’ reply memorandum.
Instead of quoting testimony from the depositions, Palowsky should have simply referred to page numbers in the deposition transcripts, the defendant judges argued.
The defendant judges complained that testimony from the depositions appeared in a news report published by The Ouachita Citizen earlier this month. The protective order, the defendant judges argued, was crafted to keep the newspaper from reporting such matters.
“As anticipated when fashioning the September 18, 2020 Protective Order, these very same portions of deposition testimony were cited extensively by the local media,” stated the defendant judges’ reply memorandum, before referring to the news report, “Testimony in law clerk lawsuit alleges corruption at court.”
The defendant judges asked Barbera to impose sanctions on Palowsky and his attorneys, Joseph “Joe” Ward III of Covington and Sedric Banks of Monroe.
“The abusiveness of Mr. Palowsky’s Opposition is emblematic of his deposition practices to date,” stated the judges’ reply memorandum. “Mr. Palowsky has used discovery—and the deposition process in particular—as a means for harassing persons he apparently perceives to be either ‘opponents’ of himself or his allies. Mr. Palowsky has employed this technique regardless of whether the target of the harassment is a party to this lawsuit or not.”
For example, the defendant judges suggested that Palowsky issued a subpoena to Monroe real estate appraiser Robbie McBroom to harass him for his prior work supporting Second Circuit Court of Appeal Judge Jimbo Stephens’ appeal court campaigns. State campaign finance records show McBroom performed campaign work for Stephens, now-Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis, Monroe attorney Tommy Hayes IV and also worked as a canvasser for the state Democratic party’s political action committee.
Marchman, who once served as Palowsky’s legal counsel, was the sole candidate who challenged Stephens’ first and second campaigns for the Second Circuit.
“Mr. Palowsky used his position as a litigant to depose a consultant for two of Judge Sharon Marchman’s previous campaign challengers,” stated the judges’ reply memorandum.”Such person was subpoenaed to appear and testify in these proceedings and was not asked a single question about the alleged document destruction, mishandling or any other issues relevant to this litigation. The consultant clearly had no knowledge about the Judges, Allyson Campbell, Mr. Palowsky or any other fact even remotely relevant to these proceedings.”
“It was only after the deposition began that the complete absurdity of the endeavor became manifest,” the judges’ memorandum added.
Attorneys Jon Guice, Justin Myers and Linda Ewbank, with the Monroe law firm Hammonds, Sills, Adkins, Guice, Noah & Perkins, signed the judges’ April 7 reply memorandum.
