Case Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Shaffer

Citation: 2003-Ohio-1008

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2003-03-19T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Shaffer, 98 Ohio St.3d 342, 2003-Ohio-1008.] 
 
 
OFFICE OF DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. SHAFFER. 
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Shaffer, 98 Ohio St.3d 342, 2003-Ohio-1008.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — One-year suspension with six months of 
sanction stayed on condition that no further violations of the 
Disciplinary Rules be committed — Engaging in conduct involving 
dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation — Counseling or 
assisting client in fraudulent or illegal conduct. 
(No. 2002-1475 — Submitted January 7, 2003 — Decided March 19, 2003.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 01-85. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
Respondent, John S. Shaffer of Bryan, Ohio, Attorney Registration 
No. 0001925, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1981.  On October 8, 
2001, relator, Disciplinary Counsel, filed a complaint charging respondent with 
violations of the Code of Professional Responsibility.  A panel of the Board of 
Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline heard the cause and, on the parties’ 
stipulations and evidence, made the following findings.1 
{¶2} 
In November 1998, a client retained respondent to arrange for the 
sale of real estate belonging to the client’s grandmother.  The grandmother had 
been incapacitated by a stroke in August 1997 and was at the time residing in a 
nursing home.  The client had previously sold parcels of his grandmother’s 
property to pay for her care pursuant to what he believed to be his authority under 
a power of attorney that another attorney had prepared in 1993. 
                                                 
1 The parties agreed to a hearing by two of the three appointed panel members when one panel 
member was unable to attend the hearing. 
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{¶3} 
Apparently because his grandmother’s living expenses required the 
sale of additional parcels, the client found another buyer in March 1999.  
Respondent facilitated the sale by preparing the purchase agreement and 
conducting a title search.  In the process, respondent discovered that the 1993 
power of attorney expressly prohibited his client from transferring property on the 
client’s grandmother’s behalf. 
{¶4} 
Respondent told his client of the problem with the power of 
attorney and asked whether his grandmother could sign a new power of attorney 
that included authority to transfer property.  The client reported that his 
grandmother was incapacitated, but assured respondent that his grandmother and 
he had always intended that he have authority, via the power of attorney, to sell 
property as necessary to pay her expenses. 
{¶5} 
In June 1999, respondent and his client visited the grandmother so 
that respondent could assess her competence.  When it became clear that the 
grandmother could not execute a new power of attorney, respondent provided a 
power of attorney that he had recently prepared but that bore the date June 19, 
1997, a date prior to the grandmother’s stroke.  Respondent then instructed his 
client to sign his grandmother’s name on the signature line.  The client did as he 
was told. 
{¶6} 
In advising his client to sign for the client’s grandmother, who may 
have been incapacitated but had not been declared legally incompetent, 
respondent counseled his client to commit forgery on the new power of attorney.  
Respondent went on to fraudulently authenticate the signature by signing as a 
witness, notarizing it, and backdating the jurat to June 19, 1997.  Later at his 
office, respondent also instructed his secretary to sign the power of attorney as a 
second witness to the forged signature.  Respondent then helped his client close 
on the property, including representing that the title was marketable.  On July 22, 
January Term, 2003 
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1999, respondent filed the new power of attorney in the county recorder’s office, 
along with the deed evidencing the sale. 
{¶7} 
The parties stipulated and the panel found that respondent had 
violated DR 1-102(A)(4) (engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, 
deceit, or misrepresentation) and 7-102(A)(7) (counseling or assisting a client in 
conduct that the attorney knows to be fraudulent or illegal).  In recommending a 
sanction, the panel was impressed with the quality and number of written 
testimonials about respondent’s integrity, professional competence, and 
contributions to his local bar and community.  In addition to these letters, several 
judges and attorneys testified as character witnesses at the hearing.  Respondent 
apologized for his misconduct, accepted complete responsibility for it, cooperated 
in the disciplinary proceedings, had no prior disciplinary record, and did not profit 
from his actions, which he claims to have engaged in solely to advance the 
combined interests of his client and the client’s grandmother.  Respondent has 
also agreed to be financially responsible to buyers for expenses incurred to clear 
title to property transferred pursuant to the forged power of attorney. 
{¶8} 
In light of these many mitigating circumstances and with his 
assurance that his infraction was an isolated incident, respondent urged the panel 
not to recommend a sanction that involved an actual suspension from the practice 
of law.  However, because respondent illegally secured a forged signature and 
notarized and recorded the document bearing the forgery, the panel 
recommended, consistent with relator’s suggestion, a one-year suspension, with 
six months stayed.  The board adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct and 
recommendation. 
{¶9} 
We agree that respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(4) and 7-
102(A)(7) and also that a one-year suspension from the practice of law, with six 
months to be stayed on conditions, is a commensurate sanction. 
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{¶10} Respondent continues to argue that his misconduct, while 
deserving of discipline, does not warrant an actual suspension.  He contends that 
his was a single act of dishonesty and, as such, does not constitute the kind of 
course of deceitful conduct for which Disciplinary Counsel v. Fowerbaugh 
(1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 187, 658 N.E.2d 237, syllabus, requires the actual 
suspension of an attorney’s license.  Moreover, because his misconduct was the 
result of an isolated incident, respondent maintains that the mitigating 
circumstances should be sufficient justification for a less severe sanction, a six-
month or one-year suspension, all stayed with probation. 
{¶11} When an attorney’s violation of a Disciplinary Rule involves 
forgery or falsification, we have, as respondent submits, tempered our disposition 
according to whether the case presents an isolated incident in an otherwise 
unblemished legal career or the more egregious course of conduct.  For example, 
we publicly reprimanded the attorney in Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Thomas (2001), 
93 Ohio St.3d 402, 754 N.E.2d 1263, because on a single occasion she signed her 
client’s name on a divorce document and improperly notarized the signature.  The 
attorney had received telephone signature authority from her client; however, she 
made the mistake of representing the client’s signature as genuine.  In Cincinnati 
Bar Assn. v. Reisenfeld (1998), 84 Ohio St.3d 30, 701 N.E.2d 973, we publicly 
reprimanded one attorney and suspended another for six months, with the entire 
suspension stayed, because they had completed affidavits for several different 
clients, one of which the more severely sanctioned attorney completed 
inaccurately, by using and then notarizing stale signatures. 
{¶12} Respondent maintains that there is no difference between these 
cases and his attempt to help a client transfer property so that the client could use 
the proceeds for a legitimate purpose.  Relator, however, insists that respondent 
engaged in a course of conduct in that he “devised and executed a scheme” for his 
January Term, 2003 
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client to circumvent, through forgery, falsifications, and illicit filing, a legally 
binding prohibition against the sale of certain property.  We agree. 
{¶13} Respondent’s misconduct manifests a course of conduct because 
he planned and administered a multistep process to defraud.  Respondent may 
have genuinely hoped to serve his client by helping him avoid the expense of 
establishing a guardianship; however, he nevertheless perpetrated fraud on the 
court system and public by sidestepping safeguards in place to protect sellers and 
buyers of real estate.  We find this case comparable to Disciplinary Counsel v. 
Bandy (1998), 81 Ohio St.3d 291, 690 N.E.2d 1280, in which an attorney induced 
a secretary to falsely attest that she had witnessed a will before the client’s death 
and then filed the will in probate court, all in a misguided plan to validate the will 
long after execution.  In Bandy, we stayed eighteen months of the two-year 
suspension ordered in that case but imposed an actual six-month suspension of the 
attorney’s license because he, too, had engaged in a course of conduct designed to 
defraud. 
{¶14} In accordance with Fowerbaugh and Bandy, respondent’s 
misconduct warrants the sanction recommended by the board.  Respondent is 
therefore suspended from the practice of law for one year, but six months of this 
sanction are suspended on the condition that he commit no further violations of 
the Disciplinary Rules.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, BROWN, LUNDBERG 
STRATTON and O’CONNOR, JJ., concur. 
 
SUSAN BROWN, J., of the Tenth Appellate District, sitting for COOK, J. 
__________________ 
 
Jonathan E. Coughlan, Disciplinary Counsel, and Kevin L. Williams, 
Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, for relator. 
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Charles W. Kettlewell & Associate, Charles W. Kettlewell and Charles J. 
Kettlewell, for respondent. 
__________________