Motion for sanctions claims Camp Mystic attorneys acted in 'bad faith'

May 29-Attorneys for an Austin couple whose 8-year-old daughter vanished during a catastrophic flash flood at Camp Mystic have filed a motion accusing defense lawyers and the parties sued for the child's death of showing a pattern of "bad-faith conduct" in the case.

The lawyers for parents Will and CiCi Steward are seeking monetary sanctions and other penalties against the attorneys defending Camp Mystic and the Eastland family, who owns and operates the Texas Hill Country retreat.

That motion accuses defense counsel of publicly attacking people connected to the case, failing to show up for court hearings and lying to a state appellate court.

Attorneys defending Camp Mystic and the Eastlands, including Mikal Watts and Jeff Ray, did not respond to a request for comment Friday.

The bid for sanctions could be considered at the next court hearing, set for June 10 before State District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble in Austin.

Five lawsuits have been filed against Camp Mystic and the Eastland family after a record-setting flash flood killed 25 children and two counselors who were camping on the rustic property in Kerr County during the dark, early morning hours of July 4.

Those lawsuits, filed by the parents of most victims killed in the disaster, accuse the defendants of gross negligence and wrongful death, among other claims. The parents are seeking millions of dollars in damages.

They paid nearly $8,000 for their daughters to attend the camp, court records show.

Camp Mystic's attorneys have argued that camp officials couldn't do much to avoid the catastrophe, which they described as unexpected and unprecedented. They've emphasized no adequate flood warning systems existed in the area when high water invaded the camp, located on the south fork of the Guadalupe River near Hunt, about 18 miles southwest of Kerrville.

The Stewards are among the parents suing. Their daughter still has not been found, nearly a year after the disaster. She was swept away from her cabin.

The motion for sanctions spotlights a firestorm that has erupted between opposing attorneys in the Camp Mystic lawsuits.

The Stewards' suit has been met "by a pattern of bad-faith conduct from defendants and their counsel," stated the motion, filed late Wednesday by Brad Beckworth, the Stewards' lead attorney. "That conduct has unnecessarily burdened plaintiffs, this court and the integrity of these proceedings. It cannot be tolerated."

Beckworth's motion accuses the defense and the parties being sued of waging "a public campaign" attacking CiCi Steward, telling the Stewards' attorneys in open court that they are "going to burn in hell" and publicly lambasting state officials who initiated legislative investigations into the Camp Mystic flooding disaster.

The "public and personal" attacks against Steward are an effort to discourage her participation in the lawsuit and related legislative proceedings, Beckworth wrote. He pointed to a recent public post on Watts' Facebook page, which specifically mentioned Steward by her name.

"FACT-850 families were prepared to send their daughters to Camp Mystic this summer, and now cannot do so," Watts wrote in his May 1 Facebook post, referring to the camp abandoning its plans to reopen part of its grounds this summer after Steward spoke against Camp Mystic and the Eastlands during a scathing hearing before a joint state legislative committee. "If this brings solace to CiCi Steward, then so be it. But I ache for each of these girls and their families, who had their choice taken from them, decided instead by politicians in Austin."

Steward's attorneys argued that Watts' Facebook post crossed a line.

"Each of these 'FACTS' is directed at CiCi Steward personally: naming her, directing public blame and resentment at her by name, positing her grief as the obstacle to '850' families exercising their 'choice' and publishing the loss of her daughter as a rhetorical device," Beckworth wrote in the motion for sanctions. "None of it served any legitimate function.

"Instead, it was a nasty and spiteful effort to make a grieving mother personally bear the public cost of decisions defendants made and to chill her continued participation in this case and in the related public proceedings."

The motion also noted one of Camp Mystic's attorneys told the Stewards' lawyers in open court after a recent hearing that they would "burn in hell." That insult was lobbed by Houston attorney Tom Wright moments after the judge left her courtroom and as everyone was leaving for the day.

Wright later apologized for the remark, according to a press release from his law firm.

A case involving 27 deaths at a Christian summer camp "should have made the basic obligation of professional decorum easier to satisfy, not harder," Beckworth wrote. "It did not. Defendants' conduct in this litigation has gone well beyond aggressive advocacy."

The motion also noted that Camp Mystic's attorneys attacked state officials who launched investigations into the Camp Mystic deaths, such as another public Facebook post made by Watts on April 7 referring to Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick as "Lt. Gov. Judas."

"As families celebrated Easter, a lead lawyer and representative for defendants publicly compared a sitting Texas constitutional officer to the apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ to his death," the motion stated.

The motion for sanctions further states that not all of the defense attorneys for Camp Mystic and the Eastlands have shown up at court hearings as required.

Most recently, Watts did not appear for a May 13 hearing that was intended to focus on a defense request to move all five lawsuits out of the courtroom and into private arbitration. No one else appeared as a substitute for him. Emails attached as exhibits to the motion showed that Watts was overseas in Italy for a wedding that day.

Defense attorneys filed notice at 11:59 p.m. the night before the hearing, stating they were withdrawing their motion to push the lawsuits into arbitration.

"I'm in Italy with a group wedding event until May 24," Watts wrote in an email at 12:07 a.m. on the morning of the hearing. That email was addressed to another attorney representing a group of victims' parents suing Camp Mystic.

When the other attorney told Watts that the defense had withdrawn its original motion to push the lawsuits into arbitration, Watts sent another email at 12:15 a.m., saying "Haven't been paying attention. Just saw the Spurs won Game 5, so there's that."

The defense filed updated, but largely similar, motions that are continuing to seek private arbitration instead of jury trials in open court.

The last-minute surprise caused heartache, inconvenience and unnecessary expenses for the flooding victims' families who traveled to Austin for the May 13 court hearing, attorneys for some plaintiffs said that day.

It was not the first time Watts missed a hearing on the Camp Mystic lawsuits. The motion said Watts had also missed a hearing on April 2.

Beckworth also accused the defense of lying to Texas' Third Court of Appeals by claiming the state district court denied them due process at a temporary injunction hearing while "concealing that they agreed on the record" to halt that hearing back in March.

As a result, the state district court held another temporary injunction hearing in April that lasted three days.

The motion for sanctions asks the state district court to issue findings that the defendants "engaged in bad-faith litigation conduct," including willful noncompliance and "pugnacious" and "disrespectful" behavior toward the Stewards and their attorneys.

It further requests the court to strike the defense's motions seeking arbitration for the lawsuits, in addition to imposing monetary sanctions.

Judge Guerra Gamble will decide whether to grant that motion for sanctions.

Attorneys for two other groups of parents suing Camp Mystic, the Eastlands and other parties for their children's deaths during the July 4 flood filed a separate motion this week aiming to strike the defense's efforts to push the lawsuits into arbitration and stop the court proceedings.

"No litigant has a right to make its own rules," said the motion filed by those parents' attorneys, Kyle Findley and Paul Yetter. "No litigant has a right to ignore court orders and court-imposed deadlines. And no litigant has a right to a ruling on a motion it has forfeited."

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