An attorney who represented the City of Clinton, Iowa faces a legal malpractice suit for allegedly advising the city to settle a case for millions of dollars when the case was worth far less.
Former Clinton firefighter Timothy Schultheis sued the City of Clinton, Iowa in 2008 alleging the city knowingly submitted false emergency medical service claims to Medicare and Medicaid. The claims allegedly required reimbursement for advanced life support when some of them should have been filed for basic life support, which is reimbursed for a lesser amount.
The complaint filed by the City of Clinton says the city settled the Schultheis case for $4.5 million on the advice of their lawyer, Michael Walker of Hopkins and Huebner, P.C.
City officials now say the actual damages were only $108,000.
The Clinton complaint accuses Walker of performing “minimal pretrial and investigative work” on behalf of the city. Walker is accused of failing to decipher complicated Medicare rules and of ignoring factors that “would have supported the City’s defenses”.
Hopkins and Huebner, P.C., is also named as a defendant. The complaint accuses the firm of failing to live up to its duty to “use such skill, prudence and diligence as lawyers of ordinary skill and capacity commonly possess and exercise”.
The complaint seeks a minimum of $3 million, plus interest, in damages.
