LAWRENCE COUNTY, Ala. (WHNT) — While hundreds of Lawrence County residents are still waiting for promised settlement checks in a contaminated drinking water lawsuit against 3M, the lawyer handling their case has been disbarred.
The Alabama Bar Association disbarred Anniston-based attorney Taylor Stewart in March after News 19 had reported multiple instances where promised settlement payments were not made, leading residents to file formal complaints with the bar association.
The Alabama Bar Association says lawyers can be sued for malpractice. And they pointed News 19 to a client security fund, which every lawyer in the state pays into. It’s set up so clients can pursue payment for a lawyer’s dishonest conduct.
The fund can pay a person up to $100,000 and up to $270,000 in one overall case. Here’s a link to the application.
News 19 has been covering the contaminated drinking water and its fallout in Lawrence County and other nearby counties since 2016. Over the past two years, we’ve been working to unravel what happened to settlement payments from a lawsuit joined by 4,900 Lawrence County area residents against 3M.
The company announced the case was settled in July 2022. Some people got settlement money, but many Lawrence County area residents who signed up for the lawsuit said they still have not received a check.
As News 19 has been talking to residents following Taylor Stewart’s disbarment, some people expressed a sense that justice has been served, but there is even stronger frustration that they have still not received settlement money. And people continue to wonder where the money went.
Courtland resident Sharon Murray recalls lawyers from the Stewart and Stewart law firm, Donald Stewart and his son Taylor, appearing at Wheeler Chapel in Hillsboro. Over two nights, they pitched the lawsuit they were pursuing against 3M, asking people to sign up.
The meetings drew huge crowds, and many signed up.
Murray said they were told the lawsuit settlement was $35 million, though that figure has not been disclosed in court records.
“They made people believe they were going to get $3,500, their children would get $850, and if you owned the land and the property you would get an extra $1,000,” Murray told News 19.
Carolyn Willard was among a group of women briefly hired by the firm to sign up people who couldn’t make it to the church for the meetings. She recalls helping sign up hundreds of people, and she kept the receipts
“I still have a lot of paperwork, and consent forms, pictures of it on my cell phone,” she said. “There have been times before where I thought this is too much storage on my phone, but I’m holding on to it, to the end, until everybody gets paid.”
Back in 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found the area’s drinking water was contaminated by PFAS chemicals. The chemicals, which don’t break down easily in water, were produced by 3M in Decatur for decades. The EPA says PFAS has negative effects on human health.
Residents are convinced the health problems of loved ones are linked to the chemicals, and the lawsuit promised a small measure of justice. Courtland resident Liz Orr said she joined the lawsuit with a small measure of hope.
“Well, I felt pretty good, I felt like we were entitled to something,” Orr said. “But to me, that wasn’t enough, because people are sick and dying in this community. So really $3,500 wasn’t a lot of money for what we’ve gone through. But at least it was something.”
For many people, that’s not how it turned out.
Courtland resident Lorna Orr and her family didn’t receive settlement checks. She pursued the Stewart and Stewart law firm for months and months, trying to get an explanation. She eventually sued in small claims court in Lawrence County. She won, but still hasn’t been paid.
“I’m tired of all the crookedness, the unfairness,” she said. “I actually thought this law firm … and I trusted, you know. But when you do so much and you go through so much, you start saying, ‘You know what, something is wrong here.”
Murray was also tired of what she’d seen. She went into action, helping coordinate nearly 300 complaints about the firm to the Alabama Bar Association.
“It’s still hurtful because there are people who still come to me and say, ‘Sharon, what happened? Why haven’t we got our money?’ Just like my cousin Eric Tyrone Billings,” she said. “They used his name without even asking him. He didn’t get paid. That really says something.”
The Alabama Bar Association eventually took up the matter, telling News 19:
“We received a number of complaints against Mr. Stewart that contained allegations consistent with your reporting. As in any ethics matter, when we get allegations of misconduct we ask the accused attorney to respond and provide his or her side of the story. Mr. Stewart initially told us that he had filed a response to the allegations with our office. When we did not receive them, we asked him to submit the response to the allegations again. We never received a response from him concerning the allegations against him.”
The Alabama Bar Association also told News 19 that Taylor Stewart later posed as his father in communicating with the bar, telling them that “Taylor” had done nothing wrong. The Bar Association figured that out and told him the only way to resolve the ethics complaints against him was to be barred from practicing law.
News 19 reached out to the Stewart and Stewart law firm again this week, one of the many calls we’ve made to the firm over the years. We left a message, but received no response.
Court records show that at least seven lawsuits were filed against Taylor Stewart in Lawrence County Small Claims Court. Records show Stewart did not respond to any of the lawsuits, and the plaintiffs were all granted default judgments.
Courtland resident Martha Hughes sued for $10,000, the amount she expected from the lawsuit settlement. She won in court, but she’s still waiting to get paid.
Now, there’s a disbarment
“I don’t know, I feel sorry for the guy,” Hughes told News 19. “But he should’ve done his job, instead of maybe trying to finagle.”
Liz Orr also addressed the disbarment.
“I think it’s good, because you shouldn’t be doing stuff, going around and telling people you’re going to help fight for them and in the end, you’re only fighting for yourself,” she said.
It’s been going on for years, but Willard is among those who say this fight isn’t over.
“No, I’m not done with it, because people need to be paid,” Willard said.
You can read more about the Alabama State Bar’s Client Security Fund here.
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