A Lexington lawyer has been sued by 49 former diet drug users who say they were cheated out of a combined $903,000 in a settlement of a lawsuit in Mississippi. 

The plaintiffs, who all reside in Kentucky, are suing J. Brent Austin of Lexington and a defunct Mississippi law firm, Langston, Sweet and Freese, and a prominent Alabama firm, Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles. The 49 diet drug users are asking for a full accounting of settlement funds, compensatory and punitive damages as well as a refund of the fees they paid their attorneys.

The 49 plaintiffs were originally part of a $200 million fen-phen settlement in Boone County in Kentucky, but Lexington attorneys Melbourne Mills, William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr. transferred the clients to Austin and firms in Mississippi and Alabama. The 49 cases settled as part of a class-action in Mississippi, said Lexington attorney Angela Ford, who is now representing the plaintiffs.

Fen-phen manufacturer American Home Products did not require those who were part of the Mississippi settlement to be residents of Mississippi. According to depositions, Gallion, Mills and Cunningham decided to transfer the cases to Mississippi because they thought the 49 clients would have a better chance of receiving a settlement if they were in the Mississippi case, Ford said.

Mills, Gallion and Cunningham were indicted in June on charges that they took more than $65 million that should have gone to 441 clients in the 2001 Boone Circuit Court fen-phen settlement. Their law licenses have been suspended and they are currently being held in the Boone County jail. Ford sued Gallion, Cunningham and Mills on behalf of more than 400 former clients of the Boone County fen-phen case.

A special judge has ruled that the three attorneys breached their fiduciary duty in the Boone Circuit Court case and has ordered that they repay their clients at least $42 million, plus interest.

The 49 plaintiffs in the Mississippi case each received a $72,000 settlement. After deducting attorney fees, they were to be paid $47,943.84, according to their contracts with their attorneys. But the plaintiffs got only $29,500, according to their lawsuit, filed last week in Fayette Circuit Court by Ford.

The Alabama firm, Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, denied wrongdoing in a statement last night.

"The money referenced in the complaint was not retained by Beasley Allen but was handed to a lawyer in Kentucky to give to his clients," said Tom Methvin, the firm's managing shareholder. "Beasley Allen did not retain the disputed funds." Methvin declined further comment.

Many of the 49 plaintiffs did not know that their case was transferred to another law firm or that it had been settled in Mississippi, Ford said.

"The lawyers did not disclose how much each case was settled for," Ford said. "The plaintiffs received approximately $18,000 less than what their contracts with their attorneys said they should receive."

A joint FBI-IRS investigation of a Mississippi fen-phen settlement has so far led to the arrest of 20 people, including one attorney, for submitting false claims that they took the diet drug. Most of the people who falsely claimed to have taken the diet drug received approximately $250,000 in settlement money.

Neither of the law firms sued in the Fayette Circuit Court case were implicated in the federal investigation into improprieties in the Mississippi fen-phen settlement, according to media reports.

Austin could not be reached for comment. Attorneys at the Mississippi and Alabama firms did not immediately return phone calls yesterday.

Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles is a prominent firm of trial lawyers that claims to have won more than $15 billion in civil verdicts and settlements. Langston, Sweet and Freese won a $145 million verdict against Ford Motor Co. and engineered a $400 million settlement with American Home Products.