ST. LOUIS – Lawyers Mark and Patricia McCloskey, whose display of firearms at their Central West End mansion frightened protesters, fortunately don’t shoot as readily as they sue.
Busy injury lawyers for 30 years, they have also represented themselves in litigation against family, neighbors, employers, contractors, and renters.
They obtained an $8,298.90 eviction order in Franklin County court on June 26, two days before they stood outside their home with guns aimed at protesters – a sensational episode caught on video that went viral. They also obtained a $6,246.36 order on the same address two years ago.
Each order awarded them $500 in fees as their own attorneys.
Their record might suggest common cause with the protesters, who passed them on the way to a police reform rally at the home of mayor Lyda Krewson.
Mark currently represents Isaiah Forman, who claims Woodson Terrace policeman David Maas kicked and struck him about the body, head and chest.
Federal grand jurors indicted Maas on a charge of unreasonable seizure in March.
In 2012, after Charleston police fatally shot Murray Asberry, Mark filed a wrongful death suit in federal court for his family and settled it in nine months.
Mark’s first actions as plaintiff served notice of his ambition.
In 1987, Bob Perica of Wood River, Illinois, filed suit for him against Lewis Rice law firm, two partners, and three other persons in St. Louis city court.
In 1988, he retained David Herndon (now a retired federal judge) to sue former U.S. Senator Tom Eagleton and 52 other partners at Thompson Mitchell, now Thompson Coburn.
Mark dismissed the suit without prejudice in 1990.
In 1991, a judge dismissed the Lewis Rice suit for lack of prosecution.
At some point the Lakin Law Firm of Wood River hired him.
He listed the firm as his employer in 1992, when he contributed $1,000 to President Bush’s campaign for a second term.
Mark sued the firm in 1994, with Patricia as counsel.
She moved for sanctions and objected to production of documents.
She moved for an order of partial distribution but didn’t need an order because the parties settled in three months.
On July 27, 1994, as litigation would reveal many years later, Mark wrote a letter to his father R. Bruce McCloskey.
He requested execution of a property deed and referenced his ability to seek judicial redress if the deed was not provided to him.
He didn’t get it.
In 1995, in St. Louis city court, Mark and Patricia filed for declaratory judgment against trustees of the Portland Place homeowners association.
They dismissed the action without prejudice later that year.
On Nov. 4, 1996, in city court, they filed a breach of contract claim against an Alabama dog dealer and a tort claim against the Central West End Association.
The association moved to dismiss the tort action, and Circuit Judge Robert Dierker dismissed it with prejudice in 1997.
Circuit Judge Steven Ohmer dismissed the dog suit in 1997, for lack of prosecution.
Mark sued a car dealer in St. Louis County court in 2000, and dismissed the suit without prejudice in six weeks.
Lawyer Gordon Neilson, nearly 80 years old, sued Mark in city court in 2001.
He claimed Mark sent him $225,000 from a $1 million fee on a $2,500,000 settlement, after they agreed on a larger share.
In 2002, while that pot boiled, Mark sued a car dealer and dismissed the suit without prejudice in four weeks.
Portland Place trustees filed a foreclosure suit against Mark and Patricia in 2002, and dismissed it without prejudice in 2003.
Neilson dismissed his suit without prejudice and refiled it in 12 days.
Mark and Patricia filed a contract suit against St. Louis painter Gerard Schlueter in 2004, and the parties agreed to dismiss it with prejudice in 2005.
Judge Ohmer dismissed Neilson’s suit against Mark in 2005, finding he failed to state a claim.
On appeal at the Eastern District, Mark wrote, “What plaintiff fails to understand is that when a young lawyer offers an old lawyer a gratuity out of generous spirit, that gift if rejected does not create a right.”
Eastern District judges affirmed Ohmer, finding Mark’s position callous but correct.
Judge Kenneth Romines wrote, “We on this court are not so far removed from the real world not to know that in commerce between attorneys, attorneys must rely on the integrity of one another, and that promises made are to be promises kept.”
He found it difficult to reconcile the check but added that the rules wouldn’t let the court engage in the inquiry.
Mark’s father executed a will in 2008, and a family feud followed.
In 2011, in St. Louis County court, Mark filed a tort claim against older sister Patricia Louise McCloskey Wilson Richards of Marshall, Virginia.
He named his father as second defendant but his father didn’t participate.
Mark dismissed the suit without prejudice in 2012.
In March 2013, in Phelps County court, Mark petitioned to quiet title on ten acres against his father, his father’s trust, his sister, and brothers Douglas and Terrence.
That April, in St. Louis County court, he filed a suit against his sister and his father similar to the one he dismissed a year earlier.
Patricia appeared as counsel with Mark but Circuit Judge Michael Burton ordered her to withdraw, finding her too close to the case.
Mark’s father died in August 2014, and the family settled the suit in December.
In May 2015, in Franklin County court, Richards filed a trust suit against Mark.
Mark and Patricia retained Michael George of Sunset Hills to litigate with them.
In April 2016, with that suit pending, Mark contested his father’s will in St. Louis County court against his sister and brothers.
In the Phelps County title action, special judge John Wiggins granted summary judgment to the Bruce McCloskey trust in October 2016.
He found Mark alleged superiority of his title to that of the trust on alternate theories of deed, equitable title and gift.
“As to the theory of title by deed, Exhibit 1 attached to the petition is a birthday card, not a deed,” Wiggins wrote.
He found Mark’s pleadings insufficient for equitable relief.
He found Mark’s parents might have intended a gift at one time but they never completed it and didn’t deliver a valid deed to him.
He found Mark’s answers to the trust’s statements of fact consisted of opinions, conclusions, allegations and denials not supported by exhibits or affidavits.
Finally he found a statute of limitations ran out, finding it began to run when Mark sent the letter to his father 22 years earlier.
In March 2017, the family settled the Franklin County trust suit and the St. Louis County suit contesting the will.
Two suits remain active for Mark and Patricia as of July 1.
On June 26, in Franklin County court, they opposed summary judgment in a suit over fence lines in the Homire subdivision.
They filed the suit against four couples and two individuals in 2016.
On June 29, in a suit they filed against Portland Place trustees in 2017, St. Louis city circuit judge Jean Moriarty denied cross motions for summary judgment.