LAKEPORT — A state appellate court last week imposed financial sanctions on Lake County judge candidate Judy Conard and her client in a nearly seven-year child custody battle because of a frivolous appeal.
In its Sept. 18 filing, Division Two of the First District Court of Appeal decided the Lakeport attorney “violated” her professional duties “by facilitating the presentation of this frivolous appeal and by advancing arguments which exceed the bounds of both common sense and sound advocacy.”
The appellate court ordered Conard to pay $6,000 to the clerk of the court. It also ordered her client, Theodore Parfet, to pay $15,000 to the mother of his 7-year-old son.
“We”re disappointed. We were surprised. We disagree,” Conard said Monday. “We would never file an appeal that we did not think had merit.”
Conard, who is competing to become judge of Lake County Superior Court Department 1 in the November election, said she would not challenge the sanction.
“We”re letting it go,” she added.
The legal back-and-forth between Parfet, a Michigan resident, and former girlfriend Amy Tucker, who moved to Lake County after their relationship ended in 2004, started more than seven years ago.
The two sides went to court to addresses a number of issues, including custody, visitation and child support.
The most recent dispute leading up to the sanctions centered on Parfet failing to pay Tucker”s attorney fees and costs. He was the beneficiary of a trust valued at $6 million to $7 million in late 2008, according to the appellate court.
The two parties argued the attorney-fee issue in Lake County Superior Court in August 2011, and the court filed a ruling Sept. 1, 2011 awarding Tucker the fees her lawyer requested.
The trial court filed a subsequent statement of decision and separate order on Sept. 29, 2011.
The next month, Parfet filed a notice of appeal from the Sept. 29, 2011 orders. Conard said her client appealed the reasonableness of the “excessive amount of attorney fees.”
Tucker subsequently filed a motion asking for sanctions against Parfet because of the appeal.
Lawrence Buchanan, the Windsor-based attorney who represented Tucker, called the appeal “an abuse of the judicial process” during a phone interview Monday.
“With this man being a millionaire and her barely making it, I think it”s financial coercion,” Buchanan said.
The appellate court deemed the appeal was frivolous and served as an example of delay strategies employed in the case.
“Furthermore, there is evidence that the delay not only benefited Parfet but also unfairly prejudiced both Tucker and her attorney,” the court wrote in its filing.
The court sought to levy sanctions “sufficient to discourage like conduct in the future.”
Conard said she received “a huge outpouring of support” in the wake of the appellate court”s decision. “I”ve actually been touched by the amount of support that people have shown me,” she added.
The two sides settled the attorney-fee dispute after the appellate decision was released last week.
Jeremy Walsh is a staff reporter for Lake County Publishing. Reach him at 263-5636, ext. 37 or jwalsh@record-bee.com. Follow him on Twitter, @JeremyDWalsh.
