Judge Jean Toal’s precedent for appointing state receiverships is alarming.

Case Study: In Park v. Armstrong International, Inc. (Park), Judge Toal illegitimately appointed Protopapas as the receiver over Cape Plc (Cape) – a company that was entirely unindebted and not at risk of insolvency. Aside from its sound financial standing, Cape Plc did not have any assets nor property in South Carolina making it increasingly less justified for a state receivership. 

Protopapas reaped the benefits of the receivership. With this new title, he was granted the  “power and authority to fully administer all of Cape’s assets, accept services on Cape’s behalf, hire attorneys for Cape, and take all necessary measures to protect Cape’s interests of any kind.” This receivership did not protect Cape’s interests. The company, once untethered to South Carolina, now operated under the control of an illegal receivership.  

Three months later, despite the limitations, Protopapas sued other third-party defendants in the unrelated Tibbs case. He also orchestrated severe and unwarranted sanctions to be entered by Judge Toal against all defendants that appear before her court. The extreme sanctions are most often leveraged to obtain disproportionate settlements, first from insurance carriers and most recently from the foreign, solvent entities. 

In the first such settlement, Judge Toal authorized the receiver, Peter Protopapas, to keep one third of the $44.5 million settlement to pay himself and his lawyers.  

Since that first payday, all subsequent “settlements” have been under seal and the amounts have not been publicly disclosed. In the Tibbs case there is no insurance money at stake. Instead, the receiver claims he is seeking “billions” of dollars from dozens of foreign, solvent companies that have never operated in South Carolina and over which the  courts have no jurisdiction.