Creve Coeur attorney Vincent Vogler and Vogler Law Firm have been ordered to comply with discovery requests by July 13 in a Madison County lawsuit that claims they collected a debt but unfairly retained the proceeds.
Vogler and his firm were sued in February by MTC 1 Inc. and Jeffrey Bauza.
The suit claims that in 2009, Bauza, who owns MTC 1, hired Vogler to represent him in collecting a debt totaling $708,766, plus accruing interest and costs, owed by Star Transport Inc. Vogler allegedly agreed to represent the plaintiffs for a 12.5 percent contingency fee.
Star made payments totaling $415,625, the lawsuit states, a good deal of which was paid directly to the IRS to settle a federal tax lien and $87,500 was retained by the defendant. In addition, the complaint says, Vogler received direct payments from the debtor, which he did not account for or disclose to the client The suit adds that the total fee the defendant was entitled to for the payments is $46,925.
However, the lawsuit says, Vogler continued to receive payments totaling $87,500, an overpayment of $40,575. While the defendant was collecting those payments, the suit says, he did not make any payments to the plaintiffs, nor did he account to the client the amounts he received. In January 2015, after making repeated requests for information and not receiving satisfactory responses, the lawsuit alleges, the plaintiffs terminated the defendant.
Circuit Judge William Mudge granted plaintiffs' motion to compel on June 29, writing that Vogler had 14 days to comply. The order states that Vogler failed to appear in court on plaintiffs' motion.
Vogler, represented by attorney Michael Kasperek, denies the plaintiffs' allegations.
MTC and Bauza seek at least $50,000, plus court costs. They are represented by attorney Ronald A. Roth of Roth Law Offices LLC in Granite City.
Madison County Circuit Court case number 16-L-176