Date: 10-29-2025

Case Style: Dr. Rachel Tudor v. Ezra Young and Brittany Stewart

Case Number: 22-CV-480

Judge: Jodi W. Dishman

Court: United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma (Oklahoma County)

Plaintiff's Attorney:

Defendant's Attorney:

Description: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma employment law lawyers represented the Plaintiffs who sued the Defendants on an interpleader theory.

Rachel Tudor, was the prevailing party in a previous employment
dispute that we remanded for calculation of attorney fees owed her. Tudor v. Se.
Okla. State Univ., 13 F.4th 1019, 1049 (10th Cir. 2021). On remand she settled for
$1,725,000 on all claims, including attorney fees. Appellants are among Tudor’s five
former counsel, who made competing claims for fees out of the settlement amount.
The contract fee for all attorney representation was set at one third of the settlement
amount, less litigation expenses, which came to $563,823.10. Because the total of
the claims of the five attorneys exceeded that amount, Tudor instituted this
interpleader action, naming her five former counsel as claimant-defendants, and she
sought permission to deposit $563,823.10 into the district court’s registry, leaving
proper allocation of the funds to the court. Appellants opposed the request and
claimed the full value of their fees, naming Tudor and her original attorney as
counterclaim defendants, and naming the defendants in Tudor as third-party
defendants. Appellants argued that $563,823.10 was insufficient to satisfy an
estimated $2.1 million in combined fees claimed by all five former counsel, and that
Tudor’s failure to deposit the estimated $2.1 million was insufficient “to comply with
28 U.S.C. § 1335(a)(1)’s requirement that she pay the full amount of money due into
the registry of the court.” Aplt. App. at 60, ¶10. They argued that because Tudor
failed to deposit sufficient funds, the district court was obliged to dismiss the case for
lack of jurisdiction.

Outcome: Dismissed.

Plaintiff's Experts:

Defendant's Experts:

Comments: