Case Title: Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Feneli

Citation: 1999-Ohio-140

Docket Number: 

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 1999-07-07T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Feneli, 86 Ohio St.3d 102, 1999-Ohio-140.] 
 
 
 
 
 
CLEVELAND BAR ASSOCIATION v. FENELI. 
[Cite as Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Feneli (1999), 86 Ohio St.3d 102.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Eighteen-month suspension with final six 
months of suspension stayed — Having sexual relations with a female client 
and proposing that she barter sexual favors for legal fees owed. 
(No. 98-2664 — Submitted April 14, 1999 — Decided July 7, 1999.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 98-05. 
 
On February 17, 1998, relator, Cleveland Bar Association, filed a complaint 
charging that respondent, Dale C. Feneli of Mayfield Heights, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0023616, violated five Disciplinary Rules by having sexual 
relations with a female client and proposing that she barter sexual favors for the 
legal fees that she owed him.  Respondent filed his answer, and the matter was 
considered by a panel of the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court (“board”). 
 
On the basis of stipulations and an evidentiary hearing, the panel found that 
in late 1994, respondent represented a female client with respect to injuries she 
sustained in a motor vehicle accident and then with respect to her divorce action.  
The panel found that in January 1995, shortly after he began representing this 
client, respondent and the client engaged in oral sex.  Thereafter, according to the 
client, respondent suggested in telephone calls to her that she pay the fees she was 
incurring by means of sexual acts.  According to respondent, the client suggested 
to him several times that she had certain “other methods of payment that [he] 
would certainly enjoy more than money.” 
 
In August 1995, the client reported the January 1995 incident and her 
telephone conversations with respondent to the Mayfield Heights, Ohio police.  
 
2 
The police arranged with the client to have her next meeting with respondent tape-
recorded, and the client then invited respondent to her apartment. 
 
During a meeting at her apartment on September 7, 1995, a date by which 
respondent contends that his representation of the client had concluded, respondent 
suggested specific prices for certain sexual acts that would satisfy the fees the 
client owed to him.  Respondent never reached an agreement with his client and 
departed without any physical contact with her. 
 
After the police declined to bring criminal charges against respondent on the 
basis of the client’s reports and the tape-recording of the September 7, 1995 
meeting, the client became “fed up with law enforcement.”  The client then 
employed an attorney, who, on her behalf, simultaneously wrote to respondent 
asserting a claim of sexual harassment  and filed a grievance against him with 
relator.  Respondent settled the civil claim by paying the client $25,000 and 
obtained the client’s agreement to attempt to withdraw the disciplinary grievance. 
 
Finding that the respondent and the client had sexual relations in January 
1995, but that the September 7, 1995 meeting was the only time respondent 
suggested to the client that she might reduce her fees by performing sexual acts, 
the panel concluded that respondent’s conduct violated DR 1-102(A)(6) (a lawyer 
shall not engage in conduct that adversely reflects on his fitness to practice law) 
and 1-102(A)(1) (a lawyer shall not violate a Disciplinary Rule).  In mitigation, 
respondent submitted twelve letters from judges, attorneys, and laypersons 
commending his competence and skill as a lawyer.  Also, three witnesses testified 
with respect to his excellent reputation for honesty and integrity during his twenty-
three-year legal career.  The panel recommended that respondent be suspended 
from the practice of law for one year, with six months of the suspension stayed 
contingent upon respondent’s successful completion of a course at a facility for sex 
offenders approved by relator. 
 
3 
 
The board accepted the findings of fact and conclusions of the panel, but 
recommended that respondent be suspended from the practice of law for eighteen 
months, with six months of the suspension stayed contingent upon respondent’s 
successful completion of a program for sex offenders approved by relator. 
__________________ 
 
Virginia S. Brown, Thomas A. Gattozzi and Cathleen M. Bolek, for relator. 
 
Richard S. Koblentz and Craig J. Morice, for respondent. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  We adopt the findings and conclusions of the board. There is 
no dispute that at the meeting in the client’s apartment respondent proposed to 
reduce the fees owed to him in exchange for certain sexual acts.  Whether the 
client or respondent initiated the discussion that resulted in the September 7, 1995 
meeting is immaterial.  Despite respondent’s contention that the attorney-client 
relationship terminated two weeks earlier in August 1995, we cannot ignore the 
proximity of the two events. 
 
We adhere to our statement in Disciplinary Counsel v. Booher (1996), 75 
Ohio St.3d 509, 510, 664 N.E.2d 522, that “the burden is on the lawyer to ensure 
that all attorney-client dealings remain on a professional level.”  From the outset of 
his representation, respondent did not meet that burden; instead, he engaged in 
conduct that adversely reflected on his ability to practice law. 
 
Although we adopt the recommendation of the board regarding the 
suspension of respondent from the practice of law in Ohio, we do not adopt its 
recommendation that respondent complete a program for sex offenders. The board 
specifically did “not find clear and convincing evidence of an ongoing course of 
abuse and harassment of [the client] by Respondent.” Moreover, the respondent 
was not criminally prosecuted for a sexual offense or sexual harassment and he 
settled the client’s civil claim. 
 
4 
 
The purpose of disciplinary actions is not to punish but to determine whether 
a person, “ ‘formerly admitted [to the bar], is a proper person to be continued on 
the roll.’ ”  Disciplinary Counsel v. Trumbo (1996), 76 Ohio St.3d 369, 372, 667 
N.E.2d 1186, 1188.  In a case with facts similar to these, but with no sexual 
relations between the attorney and client, we imposed a six-month suspension, 
Dayton Bar Assn. v. Sams (1989), 41 Ohio St.3d 11, 535 N.E.2d 298.  In this case 
we hereby suspend respondent from the practice of law in Ohio for eighteen 
months with the final six months of the suspension stayed.  Costs are taxed to 
respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.