The Wyoming Supreme Court has ruled to uphold a lower court’s ruling regarding a lawsuit between the Northern Arapaho Tribe’s and its former law firm, according to a WyoTodayMedia local report.
The District Court Judge and jury ruled in favor of Baldwin, Crocker & Rudd (BCR) and Kelly Rudd, citing that the tribe did not produce enough evidence to show that the firm received pay for services it did not provide. The Northern Arapaho Tribe’s legal suit alleged that the law firm had overbilled the Tribe by close to $5.5m.
The Supreme Court stated in its ruling, “BCR achieved many successes on behalf of the Tribe. BCR helped the Tribe achieve its dream of making the Wind River Casino a Class III casino, which generates millions of dollars in revenue every year for the tribe.
“BCR also achieved a $6.75m settlement with Marathon Oil and a $1.2m settlement with Verizon on behalf of the tribe.”
The firm represented the Tribe in various legal cases for nearly 30 years.
However, the Tribe and the firm parted ways following a request to evaluate Wind River Casino’s former CEO Jim Conrad’s performance in 2019.
Upon severing ties with the firm, the Tribe required BCR to return all funds belonging to the Tribe that had been placed in a trust account. According to the local report, “BCR then returned $879,719.48 from the Tribe’s severance tax account, $49,375.85 into the casino’s account and provided $165.71 in accrued interest to the Tribe’s severance account.”
Supreme Court Justice, John Fenn, wrote the decision on behalf of the high court; which also determined that the Tribe will not be responsible for paying any of the firm’s attorney fees.
