By Phillip Bantz
BridgeTower Media Newswires
COLUMBIA — Charleston labor attorney Nancy Bloodgood has been bench-slapped by the former chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court for filing a frivolous lawsuit against the Berkeley County School District.
Retired Chief Justice Jean Toal, acting as a circuit judge, sanctioned Bloodgood and her ex-client Amy Kovach, the district’s former communications director, in an Oct. 16 order, which noted that “sanctions are an extreme measure not to be imposed lightly.”
“This case warrants that measure,” Toal wrote.
She found that Bloodgood should have known better than to have filed a civil conspiracy complaint on behalf of Kovach against the district, the Berkeley County Republican Party and several other defendants.
The suit alleged that the defendants conspired to have Kovach prosecuted for using the district’s resources to campaign in favor of a $198 million bond referendum to build five schools and renovate 19 others.
The complaint was doomed, though, because Kovach had already pleaded guilty and admitted to committing the crimes for which she alleged the defendants had conspired to have her prosecuted.
Bloodgood had a transcript of Kovach’s testimony from the plea hearing and a letter from an assistant attorney general who provided further details about Kovach’s admission of guilt, according to Toal’s order.
But Bloodgood and Kovach contended that the conspiracy complaint hinged on whether Kovach should have been fired from her job as communications director following her guilty plea, rather than centering on her prosecution or the defendants’ role in spurring the criminal case.
Toal rejected the argument, finding that the suit was frivolous because it was constructed from allegations that were “irreconcilable with Ms. Kovach’s admissions in the matter and resulting in her criminal conviction.”
“Even if they had so conspired, bringing Ms. Kovach’s now-admitted criminal activity to the attention of the authorities, resulting in her indictment and conviction, is not actionable as a matter of law,” Toal added.
She also found that Kovach could not allege any special damages in connection with the alleged conspiracy against her because her guilty plea, sentencing and firing “were brought upon her by her own criminal acts.”
“While it appears to the court that Ms. Bloodgood’s actions in the filing of the complaint may have been the result of a combination of factors, including pressure from her client, it was not reasonable to do so in light of the information Ms. Bloodgood had at her disposal,” Toal wrote.
She said Bloodgood “cannot claim that she had to rely merely upon her client’s representations,” but added later in the order that “Ms. Kovach is even more responsible for making the frivolous filing.”
“However, despite Ms. Kovach’s egregious behavior throughout these proceedings, because the suit was filed under Ms. Bloodgood’s signature, the court is compelled to order sanctions against her, as well,” Toal wrote.
She also noted that the court was “mindful that not awarding sanctions sets a dangerous precedent.”
The sanctions motions bounced between several circuit judges before it landed on Toal’s desk as an assignment from Charleston County Chief Administrative Judge Robert Young.
“They [the other judges] didn’t want to hear it,” said an attorney for one of the defendants, Howell Morrison of Haynsworth Sinkler Boyd in Charleston. “No circuit judge wants to sanction an attorney. It’s an unusual situation and the former chief justice wrestled with what to do about this case. We see her order as a decision that she had no choice but to protect the profession.”
Bloodgood’s attorney, Kathleen Monoc of Charleston, declined to discuss the case, saying it was “still a pending matter.”
She had contended in court that the defendants could not prove that Bloodgood had an improper motive in filing the suit.
She also asserted that Bloodgood performed the necessary due diligence before pushing forward with the complaint.
“As demonstrated by her 400-page affidavit, there were boxes of documents that she reviewed and researched,” Monoc said, according to a transcript of the sanctions hearing. “She sought out additional information. She consulted. She revised.”
But Morrison told Toal that it should have been obvious to Bloodgood that this was a “garden variety obvious example” of judicial estoppel. And another defense attorney in the case, Jeffrey Breit of Virginia, urged Toal not to allow Bloodgood and Kovach to escape sanctions by blaming one another for the ill-fated suit.
“Ms. Kovach hides behind her lawyer. Her lawyer hides behind Ms. Kovach,” he said. “That’s what this is really about. … No lawyer should be allowed to do that and say, ‘Oh, it’s just a pleading. They speak for themselves. I did my work.’”
Toal will determine the amount of sanctions, which include attorneys’ fees and defense costs, during a later hearing.
During a Sept. 16 hearing on the sanctions, Breit said Bloodgood and Kovach had irreparably sullied the reputation of his client, Joshua Whitley, former chair of the Berkeley County Republican Party.
He said the conspiracy allegations that Bloodgood and Kovach levied against Whitley now appear prominently in Google searches of his name.
“Let’s talk about mitigation of damages,” he told Toal. “How much time and effort is appropriate to try to return your name, which Mr. Whitley now faces on the Internet. I don’t think there is an amount.”
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