A new episode of the long-running legal soap opera surrounding the Soul of the South TV network is playing out in Pulaski County Circuit Court, where a Chicago television station is accusing Little Rock businessman Larry Morton of dodging service in a lawsuit.
KM LPTV of Chicago-13 LLC is seeking more time to serve legal papers to Morton and to Shashwat Goyal, who both cited improper service in motions to dismiss a lawsuit against them and other players involved with Soul of the South.
The network, a venture aimed at black viewers that has withered under financial strain for the past few years, failed to pay KM LPTV for air time, the complaint says. The Chicago station filed suit in Pulaski County in January, asking the Arkansas court to enforce a $2.1 million judgment from April 2016 in Cook County, Illinois. That judgment found Soul of the South and the swarm of entities and officers surrounding it liable.
KM LPTV, represented by M. Evan Stallings of the Barber Law Firm in Little Rock and the Johnson & Bell firm of Chicago, claims that Morton repeatedly assured the station by email that payment was coming from funds Soul of the South was to receive from the state of Arkansas.
Those payments never arrived, and the station alleges fraud and breach of contract among many counts in its Arkansas suit, which seeks to “pierce the corporate veil” surrounding SOS. The plaintiff received 60 extra days to serve defendants, but that period expires July 9.
The Wrong Larry?
Morton moved to dismiss the claims against him, stating in an affidavit that he is not the Larry Morton who accepted service by signing a certified mail card at 39 River Estates Cove in Little Rock in January, and that he lives instead at 64 Villas Circle in Little Rock.
However, in its motion for more time filed last week, KM LPTV said that it tried nine times to serve Morton at the Villas Circle address, but failed. It said Morton’s attorney, Tiffany Mays O’Guinn of Little Rock, had refused to accept service on his behalf. O’Guinn didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.
Shashwat Goyal, a onetime Soul of the South board member, “claims that his name was misspelled” as “Sashwat Goyal” in a summons served on him in May, the motion for extra time states.
KM LPTV is asking for 60 additional days to serve the men, which would place the deadline in early September.
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