Breaux Oldfield Truck

This photograph of a billboard truck shows advertisements forJoy Oldfield and Alison Breaux, then-candidates for Summit County Common Pleas Court judge in 2016. Attorney Subodh Chandra, who is representing three former KNR clients suing the law firm, has asked the Ohio Supreme Court to remove Breaux from overseeing the lawsuit due to campaign contributions KNR made to Breaux and Oldfield.

(Ohio Supreme Court records)

AKRON, Ohio -- Lawyers suing the personal-injury law firm Kisling, Nestico and Redick have asked the Ohio Supreme Court to remove the judge overseeing the case.

Thousands of dollars in contributions from the law firm to now-Summit County Common Pleas judges Alison Breaux and Joy Oldfield, who frequently campaigned together last year, and a series of "lawless decisions" by Breaux call into question Breaux's ability to impartially preside over the lawsuit against KNR, plaintiff's attorney Subodh Chandra said in an affidavit filed Thursday.

Breaux has 15 days to respond to the complaint. Supreme Court Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor will then decide whether to allow her to continue to oversee the case, a spokesman for the court said.

The request sets up the latest legal battle in the case which has grown more and more contentious since it was filed last year.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of three former KNR clients, accuses the firm and owners Alberto Nestico and Robert Redick of engaging in illegal kickback schemes with chiropractors and lending agencies, and charging clients fees for "investigations" that never happened.

KNR denied the allegations, and Breaux dismissed the claims against Nestico and ordered the plaintiffs to pay his attorney fees.

KNR allowed Breaux's campaign to use a billboard truck from May through November. The same truck displayed signs for both Breaux and Oldfield, according to a photograph that Chandra attached as an exhibit to the affidavit. Campaign filings show Oldfield's campaign valued the in-kind contribution at $1,100, but Breaux's campaign marked its value at $3,600, the maximum allowed for an in-kind contribution.

Chandra questioned the discrepancy. He also said that he obtained a quote from a Cleveland-based advertising company that pegged the cost of billboard truck advertising at $1,000 per week. Because the campaigns used the trucks for six months, Chandra said the campaigns greatly underestimated the impact of the billboard donation on the campaigns.

Breaux, who raised a total of about $30,000, beat then-Judge Todd McKenney by less than 2 percent of the vote.

Further, Nestico and several doctors associated with chiropractor firms mentioned in the lawsuit donated a combined $20,000 to Oldfield's campaign. Since Oldfield and Breaux made more than a dozen campaign appearances together, Chandra said "a donation to Judge Oldfield was essentially a donation to Judge Breaux."

Chandra's filing erroneously states that McKenney never accepted campaign contributions from KNR. He also accepted an in-kind contribution for advertising from KNR Properties LLC, though McKenney's campaign did not attach a dollar amount to the donation.

KNR has pointed to a 2014 Ohio Supreme Court opinion that held that judges are not required to recuse themselves from a case solely because an attorney on the case donated to their election campaign.

The Ohio Supreme Court noted that a contribution to a judge's campaign by an attorney is not by itself enough to throw the judge off a case because judges in Ohio are elected and their campaigns are often fueled by donations from attorneys.

Chandra pointed to a series of decisions by Breaux to further bolster his claims that her impartiality could be questioned.

Breaux imposed a sweeping gag order and forced Chandra and his co-counsel, Peter Pattakos, to delete all of their social media posts linking back to a proposed complaint against KNR that was filed in February. The complaint included copies of emails that former KNR lawyer Robert Horton gave to Pattakos.

KNR has filed a counterclaim against Horton and sought to keep Horton from providing other records to Pattakos and Chandra.

Chandra argued in court filings this week that Breaux's gag order violates their First Amendment rights and stifled their efforts to seek class-action status for their case. They also said Breaux improperly imposed the orders without first holding a hearing to find that the need for the orders outweighed the presumption of their ability to speak about their case.

"Judge Breaux's connections with KNR and Nestico are enough to mandate disqualification in this case to avoid even 'the appearance of impropriety,'" Chandra wrote. "Her lawless decisions in [KNR's] favor since having taken the bench further confirm that disqualification is required."

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