Earp went through a downward spiral after Urilla's death, and he had a series of legal problems. On March 14, 1871, Barton County, Missouri, filed a lawsuit against him and his sureties. He was in charge of collecting license fees for Lamar which funded local schools, and he was accused of failing to turn them in. On March 31, James Cromwell filed a lawsuit against him alleging that he had falsified court documents concerning the amount of money that Earp had collected from Cromwell to satisfy a judgment. The court seized Cromwell's mowing machine and sold it for $38 to make up the difference between what Earp turned in and what Cromwell owed. Cromwell's suit claimed that Earp owed him $75, est. value of the machine.