It reads like a promotion for a low-budget movie, but the eye-catching billboard erected June 6 near the Bexar County Courthouse in downtown San Antonio takes aim at an unnamed attorney.

The approximately 400-member American Tort Reform Association, made up of private-sector companies, not-for-profit organizations and trade groups, put up the billboard -- headlined "The Texas Justice Massacre" -- to call attention to alleged lawyer misconduct that the ATRA contends has gone unpunished.

On its Web site, ATRA maintains that San Antonio solo Robert "Trey" Wilson III continues to practice law, and the group incorrectly claims that he has made no payments on his one-third share of almost $1 million in sanctions stemming from a trial judge's findings in a $2 billion products liability suit against DaimlerChrysler Corp. and North Star Dodge Sales Inc.

As noted in the 2000 final judgment and sanctions order in Fabila, et al. v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., et al., then-224th District Judge David Peeples dismissed the products liability suit and assessed sanctions against Wilson and two other attorneys, Robert Kugle and Andrew Toscano, after finding that they knowingly and intentionally engaged in fraudulent conduct in connection with the suit. Wilson and Toscano were associates with Kugle's firm. Peeples also ordered the clerk of the court to provide a copy of the judgment and sanctions order to the State Bar of Texas.

San Antonio's 4th Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, affirmed the judgment and sanctions order in a 4-2 decision in 2002. [See the opinion and a dissent.]

"That this guy is still practicing law, it seems to us, is outrageous on its face," ATRA spokesman Darren McKinney says of Wilson. McKinney says the ATRA will put up additional billboards later this year in conjunction with the publication of its annual "Hellholes Report," which lists what the organization maintains are jurisdictions that are havens for plaintiffs.

On its Web site, ATRA says it believes the State Bar of Texas should "appropriately sanction" Toscano and Wilson.

"It's not realistic to think the State Bar of Texas overlooks outrageous conduct," says Mark White, chairman of the 12-member Commission for Lawyer Discipline, the Bar's disciplinary arm.

Notes John Neal, the Bar's chief disciplinary counsel, "The billboard in no way tells the whole story."

Wilson did not return three telephone calls to his office before press time on June 22. Toscano, now an associate with Gene Toscano Inc. in San Antonio, declines comment. Kugle could not be located for comment. Roy Spezia, lead counsel for DaimlerChrysler and a senior shareholder in Clark, Thomas & Winters in Austin, says Kugle, whom the State Bar of Texas disbarred in 2003, was last seen somewhere in Mexico.

According to the 4th Court's opinion, Kugle, Wilson and Toscano filed Fabila in May 1998 on behalf of Bridgette and Juan Fabila. The plaintiffs alleged that a steering column design defect in the family's Dodge Neon caused a one-car rollover south of Sabinas, Coahuila, Mexico, in 1996. Four persons, including the Fabilas' two young children, died in the accident.

As noted in the opinion, an attorney with the Kugle Law Firm sent a letter in June 1996 to Juan Fabila's insurance carrier, Allstate Insurance, requesting acknowledgment of coverage of injuries and damages sustained in the accident, but Allstate denied coverage.

Still represented by Kugle's firm, the Fabilas filed their suit in May 1998, after DaimlerChrysler issued a recall notice referring to a safety-related defect in the steering column design of the Neon.

But, as Justice Karen Angelini wrote in the 4th Court's majority opinion, Bridgette Fabila had told a Mexican police officer shortly after the accident that her husband had fallen asleep behind the wheel and that she had grabbed the Neon's steering wheel, resulting in the loss of control of the vehicle.

As noted in the opinion, the Kugle firm retained Tom Persing to examine the Neon. In July 1998, Kugle, Wilson and Toscano, accompanied by Persing and Tom Garza, an investigator for the Kugle firm, traveled to a salvage yard in Mexico for the inspection. But, as noted in the opinion, Persing was unable to find any problem with the steering column that would have caused the driver to lose control of the vehicle.

Angelini further noted in the opinion that a photograph Persing took during his examination of the Neon showed that the coupler in the vehicle's steering column was intact. But a second expert for the Fabilas found during a September 1998 examination of the vehicle that the decoupler was separated, according to the opinion.

Spezia says an anonymous letter sent to his office sometime in February or March 2000 revealed that the original inspection found nothing wrong with the decoupler. Spezia says Peeples ordered the Fabilas' lawyers to turn over the photographs that Persing took during that first inspection.

As noted in the 4th Court's majority opinion, Persing testified at his deposition in Fabila that Wilson contacted him on March 21, 2000, to request that Persing send copies of his photos to the Kugle firm by overnight mail. Persing testified that he became concerned about the situation after he was subsequently contacted by DaimlerChrysler's attorneys.

Angelini wrote in the opinion that on March 27, 2000, Wilson commented in response to Persing's expressed concerns that "the Kugle firm was running a bluff but they had their hand called." Wilson's comment is featured on the billboard.

The 4th Court's opinion also noted that the Mexican police officers who investigated the accident testified in their depositions that an investigator from the Kugle Law Firm offered them bribes to forget Brigette Fabila's statement that the accident occurred after her husband fell asleep while driving.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Catherine Stone noted that she agreed with the majority's decision that the sanctions were properly imposed.

"This case presents a sordid set of facts revealing attorney misconduct," Stone wrote. A portion of that quote also appears on the ATRA's billboard.

Stone, who was joined by Justice Alma Lopez, wrote that she dissented only from the majority's affirmation of Peeples' dismissal of the underlying suit.

The State Bar first initiated grievance proceedings against Kugle, Wilson and Toscano in 2000. Citing confidentiality requirements, Neal says he cannot comment on the outcome of the proceedings against Wilson and Toscano. Under the Bar's disciplinary rules, the grievance committee that considered the alleged misconduct could have dismissed the allegations or issued a private reprimand.

Spezia says DaimlerChrysler and North Star Dodge filed a separate grievance against Wilson and Toscano in 2003.

As a result of DaimlerChrysler and North Star Dodge's grievance, late last year, Wilson received a fully probated two-year suspension of his law license in a State Bar of Texas disciplinary proceeding in San Antonio's 285th District Court. Wilson had opted to have a district court hear the Bar's allegations against him. Judge Dan R. Beck, of the 155th District Court in Fayette County, who presided over Commission for Lawyer Discipline v. Wilson by special assignment, signed the agreed final judgment on Dec. 12, 2005.

According to the judgment, Beck found that Wilson violated Texas Disciplinary Rule of Professional Conduct 8.03(a) by failing to report Kugle's conduct.

Toscano also has opted to have a district court hear the Bar's allegations against him. His trial is scheduled for Dec. 4 in the 225th District Court in San Antonio. Judge Betty Caton, of the 296th District Court in McKinney, is assigned to hear Commission for Lawyer Discipline v. Toscano.

Mike Palese, spokesman for DaimlerChrysler, says he thinks the Bar should do more in the Wilson and Toscano disciplinary cases.

"I think the Bar has given these guys a free pass," Palese says.

In his final judgment and sanctions order, Peeples found that it was fraudulent to allege in Fabila that a failed decoupler caused the 1996 accident. Peeples also found that it was fraudulent to contend that the condition of the decoupler at the time of the second expert's examination in September 1998 was the condition the decoupler was in when the accident occurred.

Commission for Lawyer Discipline Chairman White, a shareholder in Amarillo's Sprouse Shrader Smith, says, "A two-year probated suspension is serious public discipline."

But Linda Eads, an associate professor at Southern Methodist University Dedman School of Law, says of Wilson's probated suspension, "I think his punishment was light, considering the statements by the judge in the sanctions order."

Eads, who teaches professional responsibility, says one of her worries is that if the Bar doesn't control its members, it will lose the ability to self-govern.

"The state's going to take over," Eads says. "The voting public is not going to tolerate forever this kind of behavior."

Larry Doherty, a partner in Houston's Doherty Long Wagner, agrees with Eads. "I prophesized some years ago that if the Bar didn't do a better job of policing itself, the public was going to become so enraged and outraged that they would see to it that the Texas Legislature took self-regulation away from us," Doherty says.

Doherty, whose primary practice areas are ethics and legal malpractice, says the Bar is most effective when a lawyer is convicted of a crime and automatically loses his or her license. "Then the Bar goes, "Well, we took that one out of the gene pool," he says.

MORE SUITS

Their representation of the Fabilas in the products liability suit has involved Kugle, Wilson and Toscano in other litigation.

In July 2003, DaimlerChrysler and North Star Dodge filed a civil suit, DaimlerChrysler, et al. v. Kugle, et al., in San Antonio's 150th District Court, alleging fraud against the three lawyers and the Kugle firm in connection with Fabila.

In February, Wilson filed a suit against DaimlerChrysler in the U.S. District Court in San Antonio. Although U.S. District Judge Royal Furgeson Jr. is assigned to hear the case, Wilson has not yet served his complaint on the defendant.

Wilson alleges in his original complaint in Wilson v. DaimlerChrysler that he was not a party to Fabila and therefore Peeples' 2000 final judgment and sanctions order should not be treated as a monetary judgment against him. If it's a judgment against him, it is void, because it was rendered in violation of his right to due process, Wilson alleges in his complaint.

"Obviously, we have a different view," says DaimlerChrysler attorney Tom Fredell, of counsel at Clark, Thomas & Winters. "The position of DaimlerChrysler is that it is a judgment."

Spezia says DaimlerChrysler has initiated collection efforts against Wilson, Toscano and Kugle based on Peeples' order. More than $500,000 of the judgment remains uncollected, according to DaimlerChrysler's supplemental motion for aid in collecting the judgment in Fabila.

San Antonio solo Kathleen Hurren, who represents DaimlerChrysler in the collection action, says most of the money collected came from Kugle's assets.

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