COLUMBUS, Ohio – One of the original attorneys for fugitive treasure hunter Tommy Thompson, who recovered gold from an historic shipwreck, can go ahead with a claim that could be worth $1.5 million, a state appeals court has ruled.
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In Tuesday’s decision, the Tenth District Court of Appeals reversed a Franklin County Common Pleas Court ruling that barred Columbus attorney Robert Hoffman from making a claim for 1.5 percent of the total value of the gold recovered from the wreck of the S.S. Central America because he filed his claim six months after the deadline, according to a release on the Ohio Supreme Court’s website.
Presenting the trial court with letters between himself and the deep-sea salvage entrepreneur as evidence, Hoffman claimed Thompson (left) offered him 1.5 percent the net recovery for legal and business consulting work.
Thompson formed Recovery Limited Partnership in 1985 to search and recover gold and other treasure from the ship, which wrecked in 1857. More than 160 investors contributed at least $12 million to RLP and Columbus Exploration LLC to fund the exploration.
However, after the initial recovery of gold in the late 1980s, a lengthy legal dispute ensued regarding the ownership of the treasure, which has been estimated to worth more than $100 million.
Eventually the investors in RLP were granted 92.5 percent ownership of the treasurer, only some of which had been brought to the surface.
The court ruled Tuesday that Hoffman could not be prevented from making his claim, stating that his failure to respond to letters sent to investors and a legal notice published in the Columbus Dispatch following a 2005 court action. The panel said, since there was no attempt to reach investors via more up-to-date methods, such as social media or the Internet, Hoffman’s failure to meet the Jan. 2014 deadline to file a claim constituted “excusable neglect,” and showed no disregard for the legal system.
“We do not find that Hoffman’s inactions in not filing a claim before the claim bar date when there is no evidence that he had any actual knowledge of such a deadline, constitute a complete disregard for the judicial system,” wrote Judge Gary Tyack in the decision.
A receiver appointed by the court in 2005 to take over Columbus Exploration and RLP after investors filed suit was ordered to send the letters and post the legal notice in the newspaper.
In a dissenting opinion, Judge Betsy Luper Schuster argued that the digital age has made the reach of news so widespread and that she found “it all the more difficult to believe that even if Hoffman did not see the newspaper notices.