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Cross Posted at Legal Schnauzer
Perhaps the biggest legal story in the South right now involves what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has called the "public disintegration" of the Rollins family.
What is the Rollins family? It is one of America's wealthiest clans, best known as the folks behind Orkin Pest Control. They have cultivated an image as low-key philanthropists, but two lawsuits recently filed in Atlanta pull the mask off Rollins Inc.
It's a story about massive wealth, family dysfunction, and Republican Party politics--with a roundabout connection to the wacky Christine O'Donnell. It's also a story with ties to Alabama, where a member of the Rollins family has played center stage in one of the most grotesque examples of courtroom injustice I've ever encountered.
Regular readers know I would not make that last statement lightly. But I have closely examined the file in a case styled Rollins vs. Rollins. It's a domestic-relations case that Ted W. Rollins (in photo above) filed against his wife, Sherry Carroll Rollins, who had moved to Shelby County, Alabama, from the couple's home in Greenville, South Carolina.
Sherry Rollins had already filed for divorce in South Carolina, and a judge had issued a warrant for Ted Rollins' arrest for failure to pay child support. But Ted Rollins somehow managed to get the case transferred to Alabama. Anyone who has taken a few days of Law School 101 knows that cannot be done. But it apparently can be done when you are a member of one of America's wealthiest families, and you have ties to Bradley Arant Boult and Cummings, one of Alabama's largest law firms.
With the help of some dumbfounding decisions by Shelby County Judge Al Crowson, who just happened to retire early as the case was winding down, Ted Rollins received a judgment that was both stunningly favorable and blatantly unlawful.
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