A Lincoln County judge was reprimanded last month by the Missouri Supreme Court for mismanaging his courthouse.
The allegations against Judge Patrick Flynn include failing to file timely reports of cases and allowing at least two legal cases to languish for two years without adjudication.
“If I were filing a suit in this court, I would take a change of judge pretty quickly,” said Laurence Mass, a legal malpractice attorney in Clayton. “I wouldn't want him to adjudicate the case.”
Flynn’s mismanagement caused litigants and attorneys to face significant delays in the final disposition of their cases, according to an Aug. 5 report by the Commission on Retirement, Removal, and Discipline.
“By failing to complete and timely follow the reports, Judge Flynn demonstrated either at best a negligent disobedience to mandatory directives, or at worst, an avoidance of divulging the cases pending for unacceptable periods of time,” wrote the Commission’s chair Judge Robert Clayton and James Smith, Commission administrator and counsel.
While Flynn acknowledged the delays, he also blamed them on assignments outside the circuit, COVID-19, his regular workload, and the time required to address disorganization and discord within Lincoln County Circuit Clerk's office, but the commission still found the conduct to be in violation of Supreme Court rules.
Flynn has been embroiled in a long-standing dispute with Karla Allsberry, Lincoln County’s outgoing Clerk of the Circuit Court, in which Allsberry sued Flynn alleging he overstepped his authority by placing her on indefinite administrative leave and banning her from performing circuit clerk duties.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, Allsberry’s husband, Gregory Allsberry, a Republican, defeated Flynn, a Democrat, in the 2014 general elections in which both were gunning for associate judgeship.
“It's exceedingly rare for a judge to be reprimanded,” Mass told the St. Louis Record. “In almost every complaint against a judge, as I understand it, there's no overt action taken.”
By itself, the Missouri Supreme Court’s reprimand is not enough for the litigants of previous cases that Flynn adjudicated to challenge their outcome unless within the timeframe of an appeal, however, Mass said that for the Supreme Court to overtly discipline a judge is significant.
“Litigants have to take that into account,” he said. “It makes you wonder if your client will get a fair shake and it makes you very hesitant to have any case heard by that judge.”