Hawkins

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In September 2018, Hawkins retained Howard to represent him in a civil case against the City of San Bernardino and individual police officers for injuries Hawkins suffered during an officer-involved shooting on April 5, 2018. On September 7, Howard, who was based in Georgia, mailed a tort claims notice to the San Bernardino City Attorney and counsel for the City of Barstow. After Howard sent the tort claims notice, he referred the case to the law firm of Ivie McNeill Wyatt Purcell & Diggs, APLC (Ivie McNeill). Thereafter, the complaint alleged, Howard took no further action. In 2020, Ivie McNeill filed a lawsuit on Hawkins’s behalf in the United States District Court against the City of Barstow and several individual police officers. (Marlon Hawkins v. The City of Barstow, CA, et al., Case No. 5:20-CV-00557-MWF-SP (the federal case).) Hawkins filed a first amended complaint in the federal case in July 2020, alleging three federal claims and eight claims under California law. The City of Barstow and the individual police officers named in the federal case filed a motion to dismiss, arguing, as pertinent here, that Hawkins had failed to…