A Chicago attorney was removed from a northern Indiana federal personal injury case last week because he had witnessed an alleged golf course accident that was the basis of his client’s lawsuit.
Chicago attorney Jeffrey Grant Brown represented Glen Dunn in a suit filed in July 2017 against Palmira Golf & Country Club, Inc. in St. John, where Dunn was allegedly injured in August 2015. The suit filed in the Northern Indiana District Court, Hammond Division, claimed the golf course was negligent for placing a slippery wooden material on a path that led to the course greens, and the material caused Dunn to fall and severely injure his shoulder.
Magistrate Judge John E. Martin on Tuesday granted a defense motion to disqualify Brown from representing Dunn at trial or in depositions because he is likely to be a necessary witness.
“In this case, it is obviously inappropriate for Attorney Brown to serve as the attorney at his own deposition, which should proceed as soon as reasonably feasible, and his personal knowledge of the events at the core of this case disqualify him from taking any additional depositions or arguing any motions in Court,” Martin wrote in the order.
A status hearing was set for Nov. 1 to determine how the case of Glen Dunn v. Palmira Golf & Country Club, Inc. and Palmira, LLC, 2:17-cv-324, would proceed.
This article was first published by The Indiana Lawyer.
