So, too, have we had the opportunity to do good for society and our clients.
And
finally you would think that in a century, we would have represented a
number of unique folks involved in complex and interesting matters.
Indeed we have done all of those things and just a few follow.
$16 Million Gold Bank Case
The
False Claims Act
was originally known as the Lincoln Law when enacted in 1863 to fight
fraud on the Union Army by unscrupulous defense contractors during the
American Civil War.
The False Claims Act is one of the Firms
area's of concentrations in which it has achieved major success. One of
its recoveries at the time placed it on the list of the Top 100
Recoveries in the 140 year history of the False Claims Act.
Historian Angie Debo
One of Oklahoma's most accomplished but little known citizens was educator, historian and author
Dr. Angie Debo.
Dr. Debo was a leading scholar of Indian history, and her work has been
cited as evidence in federal court cases involving tribal land rights.
Her classic work
And Still the Waters Run: The Betrayal of the Five civilized Tribes published by Princeton University Press after much controversy in 1940 has been in print for over 60 years.
Dr. Debo's portrait hangs in the Oklahoma State Capital,
seen at the right, with that of humorist Will Rogers and Indian athlete
Jim Thorpe. In 1993 Debo was inaugurated to the Oklahoma Historians
Hall of Fame. The
Angie Debo Elementary School is named in her honor as well as a state highway. She has been the subject of
numerous books and a PBS American Experience television documentary:
Indians, Outlaws and Angie Debo. Debo's papers are on file at
Oklahoma State University's Edmond Lowe Library.
Our
late partner Ed DeClerck represented Angie before her death in 1988.
She wrote a total of nine books, edited others and published many
articles in different journals, including Harper's Magazine. Her last
book,
Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place, was finished when she was 85 years old. Angie once said:
“I
am sometimes asked to state my ‘goals and ambitions in writing’. I
suppose I have only one: to discover truth and publish it.” We like that.
$8 Million Gold Class Action
In 2004 we filed a
class action
on behalf of about 400 farm families living in Oklahoma and Kansas (the
"Gold Class Action"). These farmers, who had been customers of Gold
Bank, had been harmed by Gold Bank's abuse of the USDA's Farm Service
Agency's guaranteed lending program designed to benefit Gold Bank's own
farmer customers.
This
Gold Class Action case sought to help the farmers recover the damage
they suffered by Gold Bank's fraud on them and the United States
Government similar to what we found in out Gold Bank Qui Tam lawsuit.
In the Qui Tam case we collected $16 Million for the American Taxpayers
under the Federal False Claims Act.
In November 2006 the
District Judge approved the $8 Million settlement we reached in the
Gold Class Action. This case was filed in
Kingfisher County, Oklahoma District Court which will benefit our farmer clients.
Our
clients in the Gold Class Action will all receive substantial money --
and some will receive tens of thousands of dollars -- for their damage
they suffered. We are happy we could help so many of our farmer
clients.
The Despacing Cases
During
the last oil boom in the early 1980's, we were retained by W. T. "Bud"
Massey to represent over a thousand of his landowner lessors in what
came to be know as the Despacing Cases. In Mitchell DeClercks 100
years we've seen a number of these "booms".
Massey had obtained
oil and gas leases (the "Top Leases") on hundreds of thousands of
acres of farm land from Northwest Oklahoma farmers that would only be
good if existing leases expired (the "Bottom Leases"). He then
successfully sought and obtained court orders to cancel the Bottom
Leases which big oil company had been sitting on for decades to the
detriment of the farmers.
Since oil was then well over $100 a
barrel in today's dollars, a gold rush ensued with others seeking to
drill wells to extract the expensive oil to the benefit of our clients
and the farmers. Typically the Big Oil companies tried a myriad of
ploys and subterfuges to stop Massey and eventually the United States
Supreme Court approved what Massey had done.
The litigation was
a complex and interesting one in which we were called upon to manage
and organize thousands of pleadings affecting more than a thousand
clients in over a hundred cases -- all before personal computers were
widely used.
We were honored to help Bud Massey and his many friends stand up to Big
Oil. So if you have a similar problem, we've been there and done that.
$2 Million Farmers Exchange Case
In
2003 we located yet another bank that had abused the USDA's Farm
Service Agency's Guaranteed Loan Program to cheat its farmer customers
out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in excessive interest. The
headquarters of that bank, The Farmers Exchange Bank of Cherokee,
Oklahoma, is pictured at the right.
Using
the little know century old "Lincoln Law" we filed suit on behalf of
the United States Government in the United States District Court for
the Western District of Oklahoma.
The Lincoln Law
allows private "Whistleblowers" with knowledge of fraud against the US
Government to act as private attorney generals or "Relators" to bring
these actions.
Larry along with his partners Mike
Bigheart and Roger Ediger represented two courageous such
whistleblowers willing to seek recompense for the American Taxpayers
cheated by this fraud using the Lincoln Law.
After considerable
work and investigating we convinced the US Department of Justice to
join us in our litigation and we eventually negotiated a generous
settlement benefiting the American Taxpayers.
This settlement
was consumated in the Spring of 2006 when the Farmers Exchange Bank of
Cherokee, Oklahoma paid over $2.1 Million to the United States
Government. This brought our recoveries for the American people under the FCA to over $18 Million in just 18 months.
The Movie "Twister"
When
Warner Bros. came to Northwest Oklahoma with Helen Hunt, Bill Paxton
and Stephen Spielberg in 1996 to film the blockbuster movie
Twister, they called on Mitchell DeClerck.
Larry
and Mitchell DeClerck provided legal services of a disparate nature
including contracts, real estate and just plain problem solving. The
movie's poster is shown at the left. The filming was largely based in
the small Grant County town of Wakita, Oklahoma, which now maintains a
"Twister Museum".
$1 Million Wildfire Case
After
a long and difficult struggle, Larry and his partner E.W. "Bill" Shaw
of Mitchell DeClerck recently concluded the distribution of over $1
Million we recovered for landowners who were damaged by the negligence
of a crew replacing power lines in northwestern Oklahoma.
In
1996 the crew, while working in the middle of a dry grass pasture
during record drought conditions and 40 mile per hour winds, caused a
massive fire. That wildfire raged over several days, burning tens of
thousands of acres in three counties in Oklahoma and Kansas.
The wildfire is pictured at the left which ultimately swept over
nearly 100,000 acres of range and farm land.
Fortunately
no lives were lost nor was there serious personal injury. Amazingly
none of the cattle shown in the photograph at the right were injured.
The Firm represented the "class" in a class action filed in 1996.
Larry and the Firm have recovered nearly $10 Million for classes they
have represented in the last three years.
Summary
Recognize
that these cases are not meant to infer that a particular or similar
result will be obtained in another case since every case must stand on
its individual merits and settlements are the result of private
negotiations among the parties and may be affected by other factors in
addition to the legal merits of a case.