Texas lender seeks judgment against Fort Collins law firm

FORT COLLINS — A Texas individual working in the investment advisory industry has filed suit against a Fort Collins law firm claiming that the firm fraudulently deprived him of his share of an insurance settlement.

Jason Pinson, who lists Mansfield, Texas, as his residence, has sued Hadfield, Stieben & Doutt LLC and attorneys Gordon Hadfield and Sara Stieben in the case filed Tuesday in Larimer County District Court.

Stieben said in response to a request for a comment that “we believe the case is meritless. He has a vendetta against our client and is taking it out against us as a third party. We respectfully decline any further comment.”

Pinson, who filed the lawsuit as an individual, has a law degree from the University of Tulsa College of Law and is the founder and CEO of Rocktop Partners and the president of Ursus Holdings LLC, according to his LinkedIn profile.

He alleges in his lawsuit that he loaned money to Aubrey Laine Stevens, who operated a construction company called Elements Recovery LLC. The company was engaged in a protracted lawsuit against insurance company Ohio Security/Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. The money that Pinson loaned to Stevens was at least partially used to finance her company’s claims against Liberty Mutual.

Pinson said in the lawsuit that he had a written agreement with Stevens and Elements from 2017 that he would be repaid from the insurance company settlement or verdict “no less than $4,000,000 of the estimated debt…”

The Fort Collins law firm began working with Stevens in 2018 at an hourly rate. In June 2019, Elements received a judgment in the amount of more than $2.38 million from the insurance company. Days later, the lawsuit alleges, Stevens, in anticipation of an appeal from the insurance company, signed a new agreement with her law firm that replaced the hourly rate agreement with a contingency-fee agreement that would pay either attorney fees awarded or 40% of a settlement, whichever was greater.

Pinson said in the lawsuit that he was not consulted about the change in the fee arrangement with the law firm. When the appeal was settled less than two months after the original judgment for $1.85 million, Pinson also was not consulted, he alleged.

The law firm collected $647,500 in fees under the new fee agreement. Elements paid Pinson just more than $1 million.

The lawsuit claims that the contingent-fee agreement was an illegal transfer made to defraud an earlier creditor, Pinson. It further alleges that the contingent fee was not reasonable because a judgment had already been rendered in the case before the fee agreement was signed.

He seeks 1.5 times the value of the assets transferred or 1.5 times the amount necessary to satisfy his claims against Elements.

The case is Jason Pinson v. Hadfield Stieben & Doutt LLC, Gordon Hadfield and Sara Stieben. It is filed in Larimer County District Court as 2021cv30900.

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