The nightmarish wake of the loss of Carina Larkins' father has lasted most of her life. "I was 12 years old," she said, of the year her father, Tennessee Highway Patrol Trooper Todd Larkins, was struck and killed by a tractor trailer in the line of duty. That was 2005. Nearly a decade later, Larkins learned he'd left a large sum of money behind for her in a trust fund.
"I did not even know that I had inherited this money until I was 21 years old," she explained, "so, it's a pretty big shock to a 21-year-old."
The family tapped attorney Jack Garton set up the trust fund, containing more than $2 million from the settlement of a wrongful death lawsuit. Years after learning of its existence, when Larkins was ready to use the funds to invest in opening her own business, she discovered they were gone. "It was almost empty," she said. "It had less than a quarter of the original amount left."
The trust was administered out of the probate and juvenile court of Dickson County. Over a period of years, Garton began quietly disbursing trust monies to himself in the form of excessive fees. As the probate judge neared retirement, Garton began taking bolder measures to disburse more trust money to himself and hide his wrongdoing. He persuaded the judge to shield disclosure of trust transactions from Larkins, who by then was an adult. He also convinced the judge to issue an order saying that disbursements from the trust could be made without court approval. "It was awful," Larkins said.
In 2019, Garton was convicted of wire fraud aggravated identity theft and tax fraud. The Tennessee Supreme Court suspended his law license. After that, a hearing panel of Tennessee's Board of Professional Responsibility, which regulates lawyers in Tennessee under the authority of the Tennessee Supreme Court, found that Garton committed multiple violations of the ethics rules, including misappropriation of client funds and engaging in dishonest and fraudulent conduct. The hearing panel and the Board recommended that the Court disbar Garton.
The Court agreed and entered its order disbarring Garton on September 10. Under a new state law enacted earlier this year, Garton will never be eligible to be reinstated to the practice of law in Tennessee.
"I was pretty surprised," Larkins said. Until 2020, attorneys in Tennessee who had been disbarred for five years had the right under the ethics rules to ask the Supreme Court to reinstate them, no matter how bad the misconduct.
In January, the Tennessee Supreme Court amended its rules on discipline of lawyers to state that attorneys who are "disbarred on or after July 1, 2020, are not eligible for reinstatement." The change means that attorneys who are disbarred after July 1 are permanently disbarred and cannot ask the Court to reinstate their law license.
Garton is the first case to take effect after the new rule was enacted.
"I guess it’s just nice to know that he’s never going to be able to hurt anybody else," Larkins said.
