2nd Lawsuit Filed Against MMA by Former Business Partners

A company that provided hurricane-damage estimates to embattled McClenny Moseley & Associates says in a lawsuit filed Thursday that the law firm owes it nearly $10 million.

Those unpaid invoices allegedly owed to Global Estimating Services come on top of a $3 million investment loan that a GES affiliate, Access Restoration Services, provided to MMA. GES and ARS both filed lawsuits against the Houston-based law firm in Harris County District Court.

Insurance defense attorney Steve Badger, a partner with the Zelle law firm in Dallas, posted a copy of the GES lawsuit on LinkedIn Friday.

“ARS not only invested in MMA’s cases, but its related company GES was also writing estimates for MMAs cases,” Badger wrote. “Looks like AMS and GES are now out around $13M. I wonder if at some point someone scratched their head and said: ‘Ya really think its ok that we are doing this?'”

An inquiry by federal judges in Louisiana revealed that MMA filed thousands of hurricane-damage lawsuits, many of them on behalf of property owners that it did not represent and some of them against the wrong insurance company. Federal judges for both the Eastern and Western Louisiana districts have barred the law firm from proceeding with lawsuits and a Circuit Court judge has issued a similar order for Louisiana state courts.

A lawsuit filed in March on behalf of homeowners that MMA allegedly claimed to represent, when in fact it represented restoration contractors, has been removed from state court to the US District Court for Eastern Louisiana.

Katherine Monson, the wife of New Orleans insurance defense attorney Matthew Monson, has also sued MMA and Tort Network, which owns an Arizona-based marketing company that does business as Velawcity. Her complaint alleges the law firm and the marketing company conspired to violate Texas barratry laws.

Now one of MMA’s former business partners has turned against it.

GES and ARS are both controlled by Giuseppe Gagliano and Domenico Gagliano of Toronto, Canada. The two men incorporated GES as a Delaware corporation headquartered in Conroe, Texas in February 2022.

GES’ lawsuit says MMA hired it to provide field inspections for residential and commercial properties damaged by hail, fire, water intrusion, collapse, wind and flooding. Initially, MMA paid some invoices, but “has since fallen woefully behind on payments,” its lawsuit says.

GES says MMA owes $9,885,862.99 and is asking the court to award that amount, plus attorney fees, interest and cost.

The lawsuit filed by ARS last week says that MMA founding partner John Zachary Moseley promised that the company could quadruple its money by loaning it $3 million. ARS wired the money to MMA’s bank in December 2021, but the loan has not been repaid, according to the complaint.