One lawyer in the contest over J. Don Brock's multimillion-dollar estate has filed a motion saying the opposing attorneys should recuse themselves.
Jerry Summers, the attorney representing the late Astec Industries founder's five adopted children in the will contest, wrote that two Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, P.C. attorneys representing Brock's estate are compromised because of their close ties to the late engineering magnate.
For decades, Richard Bethea served as a close friend, attorney and confidant to Brock, who founded Astec Industries in 1972, according to the motion, filed Thursday in Hamilton County Chancery Court. Astec is an asphalt equipment maker.
J. Don BrockFrom 1997 to 2002, Bethea worked for Astec Industries as executive vice president and secretary and continued to provide general outside counsel after leaving the company, the motion says.
The firm Bethea later joined, Chambliss, Bahner & Stophel, P.C., prepared Brock's will in 2013 while the CEO battled the mesothelioma cancer that would claim his life in March 2015.
The motion also says the Chambliss firm worked on different wills from 1994, 1998, 2006 and 2012.
"Mr. Bethea was named the executor of at least one of those wills," the motion says.
And since Bethea and Chambliss attorney Gregory Willet probably will be key witnesses in the contest, their ties to Brock are enough to recuse them, Summers wrote.
Since his death in March, Brock's estate has come under contest by five of his seven adopted children, who say their stepmother axed them from the 2013 will, according to a lawsuit filed in September.
Bethea, one of the attorneys defending the estate for co-executors W. Norman Smith and Brock's ex-wife, Sammye Brock, said he had reviewed the motions and found no issue.
"Suffice it to say, if we thought that we couldn't represent the Brock estate, we wouldn't have taken the representation in the first place," Bethea said Monday. "You're better off going to Mr. Summers about what his real intent is."
In September, Melissa Sue Brock Adcock; Krystal Gail Brock Parker; Jennifer Rebecca Brock; Daryl Williams Brock, and Walter Edward Brock said they were unaware they'd been disinherited from their father's will until after his death, according to their lawsuit.
Their copies of the will were shipped in the mail, not personally delivered, the lawsuit says, and one sibling had to inform Walter Brock since his notice never arrived.
The siblings listed three contested grounds - the first being the authenticity of their father's signature. The only witnesses present for the will signing were Astec Industries employees or officers who had a financial interest in the company, the suit says.
The suit's additional arguments require an understanding of the Brock family tree.
Brock and his first wife, Lynne Williams Brock, adopted the five children in 1983, the suit says. Brock never had any biological children but eventually adopted seven total. After 31 years of marriage, he filed for divorce in 1996. Two years later, after winning custody of four of the five children now contesting his estate, Brock married Sammye Brock, his receptionist since 1974.
The September estate lawsuit, which described Sammye Brock as his mistress, said she signed her husband's name for decades as his receptionist and later his wife.
The five siblings allege that Sammye Brock teamed up with two of her children from a previous marriage, Devin and Christie Sprouse; Brock's other adopted children, Elizabeth and Benjamin Brock; and Smith, a co-executor, to remove them from the 2013 will. These four children were included, the suit says.
The scheme ultimately worked, the lawsuit alleges, because Brock's intense cancer treatments compromised his mental and physical capacities.
The next step in the case is a hearing on the motions on Jan. 11 at 8 a.m. in Chancery Court.
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