Case Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Johnson

Citation: 2003-Ohio-5753

Docket Number: 20030817

State: ohio

Court: Ohio Supreme Court

Date: 2003-11-12T00:00:00Z

Document:
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Johnson, 100 Ohio St.3d 291, 2003-Ohio-5753.] 
 
 
OFFICE OF DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. JOHNSON. 
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Johnson, 100 Ohio St.3d 291, 2003-Ohio-
5753.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Indefinite suspension — Propensity for self-
dealing — Engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or 
misrepresentation — Engaging in conduct prejudicial to the 
administration of justice — Neglect of an entrusted legal matter — 
Failing to carry out contract for employment — Causing a client damage 
or prejudice — Improperly communicating with a party attorney knows 
is represented by counsel — Failing to cooperate in disciplinary 
proceedings. 
(No. 2003-0817 — Submitted June 24, 2003 — Decided November 12, 2003.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 02-25. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶1} 
Respondent, Jacqueline Tullos Johnson of New Albany, Ohio, 
Attorney Registration No. 0029249, was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1982.  In a 
complaint filed on April 8, 2002, relator, Office of Disciplinary Counsel, charged 
respondent with four counts of professional misconduct.  Respondent answered 
the complaint but did not answer allegations raised in a fifth count added later by 
amendment.  A panel of the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline heard the matter on January 17, 2003, and made findings of fact, 
conclusions of law, and a recommendation.1   
                                                 
1. 
Respondent requested a continuance, citing incomplete preparation because of ongoing 
health concerns, on the day before the hearing.  The panel chair denied the motion, and respondent 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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{¶2} 
With respect to Count I, respondent agreed in 1994 to appeal an 
order denying an incarcerated client’s motion to vacate his sentence.  Respondent 
filed the appeal but did not file a brief, and the court dismissed the appeal for 
want of prosecution.  Despite the dismissal, respondent advised her client that she 
had filed a brief and that the appeal remained pending.  The panel found that 
respondent had thereby violated DR 1-102(A)(4) (engaging in conduct involving 
dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation), 1-102(A)(5) (engaging in conduct 
prejudicial to the administration of justice), 6-101(A)(3) (neglecting an entrusted 
legal matter), 7-101(A)(2) (failing to carry out a contract for employment), and 7-
101(A)(3) (causing a client damage or prejudice). 
{¶3} 
With respect to Count II, in March 1995, while still representing 
her incarcerated client, respondent prepared a settlement agreement to terminate 
the client’s business relationship with two associates.  The agreement provided for 
the associates’ transfer of assets to Keystone Financial Services, Inc. 
(“Keystone”), a lending company that had previously been inactive, and for 
respondent to receive all of Keystone’s stock in trust for her client. 
{¶4} 
Respondent entered into the settlement agreement on her client’s 
behalf pursuant to a power of attorney, promising to hold the Keystone stock in 
trust for her client and to maintain custody of the corporation’s assets.  Neither 
respondent nor her client, who considered himself the sole owner of Keystone, 
specifically documented their trust arrangement. 
{¶5} 
On March 15, 1995, the day respondent and the associates 
executed the settlement agreement, respondent issued 1,500 shares of Keystone 
stock to herself.  The stock certificates listed respondent as Keystone’s president 
and secretary-treasurer.  Also on that day, respondent conducted Keystone’s 
                                                                                                                                     
moved for reconsideration.  The full panel denied reconsideration at the outset of the hearing, 
observing that the proceeding had been scheduled, with notice to the parties, since September 
2001.  Respondent participated in the hearing pro se. 
January Term, 2003 
3 
annual meeting and indicated in the minutes that she was the company’s only 
director and the sole shareholder.  In deposition testimony submitted for the 
panel’s consideration, however, respondent’s client insisted that he had not 
intended to relinquish his ownership interests to respondent.  Moreover, despite 
the records documenting that respondent assumed ownership of Keystone in 
March 1995, respondent had previously represented under oath that this did not 
occur until March 1996.  The panel found that respondent had thereby violated 
DR 1-102(A)(4). 
{¶6} 
With respect to Count III, in June 1995, respondent sent on 
Keystone’s behalf a letter of commitment to Thermal Imaging, Inc., an Oregon 
corporation that was interested in a loan for the development of medical 
diagnostic technology.  In the letter, Keystone offered to lend Thermal Imaging 
$1.4 million for a term of two years in exchange for a promissory note and the 
corporation’s pledge of 2,000,000 shares in Computerized Thermal Imaging, Inc. 
(“COII”), a related technology company, as security for repayment of the loan.  
According to other terms, the number of shares pledged as collateral was to be 
increased if necessary to maintain a 40 percent loan-to-value ratio.  The letter also 
provided for closing on the loan within five banking days after execution of the 
promissory note and pledge agreement, delivery of the stock certificates, and 
transfer of the stock into Keystone’s name. 
{¶7} 
On July 19, 1995, the president of Thermal Imaging and 
respondent, on behalf of Keystone, executed a promissory note and a pledge 
agreement for the loan.  The agreement provided for Keystone to receive a 
security interest in 2,000,000 shares of stock in COII and for Keystone to serve as 
attorney-in-fact in arranging for the transfer of the pledged shares.  The pledge 
agreement also authorized Keystone, with seven days’ notice to Thermal Imaging, 
to sell the pledged shares upon default of the terms of the loan. 
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{¶8} 
Thermal Imaging promptly transferred the pledged shares to 
Keystone and complied with all other conditions necessary for the loan to be 
funded.  Notwithstanding this, Keystone advised Thermal Imaging that the 
closing would be delayed due to Keystone’s difficulty in finding a brokerage firm 
to accept the COII shares.  On August 23 or 24, 1995, Keystone deposited the 
shares with a securities firm in New York and sent Thermal Imaging a stock loan 
closing statement containing the terms of the distribution, including that Thermal 
Imaging would receive net proceeds in the amount of $1,193,611 pursuant to a 
loan of $1,272,000.  Based on the commitment letter, the closing and funding of 
the loan should have occurred shortly thereafter.  Keystone, however, never 
funded the loan.  At the end of August, Thermal Imaging representatives noticed 
heavy trading in COII stock.  By early September, Thermal Imaging suspected 
that Keystone was converting and selling the pledged shares. 
{¶9} 
In fact, Keystone had sold pledged COII shares.  To stop these 
sales, a federal district court granted Thermal Imaging’s request for a temporary 
restraining order, finding that Keystone had wrongfully transferred and sold 
685,000 shares of COII stock and was further attempting to transfer and sell an 
additional 1,315,000 shares.  Keystone paid approximately $687,000 representing 
a portion of the sale proceeds over to Thermal Imaging. 
{¶10} Respondent could not account for the rest of the sale proceeds; 
however, she did not accept any responsibility for the sold stock, claiming that 
other Keystone employees had arranged the sales as part of the company’s day-to-
day transactions.  Respondent also claimed that an officer of Thermal Imaging 
had authorized the sale of the pledged shares.  The president of Thermal Imaging 
denied this assertion, and the panel credited his testimony.  For this and her other 
acts related to the failed Thermal Imaging loan, the panel found that respondent 
had violated DR-102(A)(4) and (6) (engaging in conduct that adversely reflects 
on the attorney’s fitness to practice law). 
January Term, 2003 
5 
{¶11} With respect to Count IV, the panel found that respondent violated 
Gov.Bar R. V(4)(G) (failing to cooperate in disciplinary proceedings) because she 
did not respond timely, completely, or at all to several letters of inquiry she 
received during relator’s investigation of her misconduct.  Respondent also did 
not answer the amended complaint, comply with the panel’s order compelling 
discovery, attend her client’s deposition despite proper notice, or participate in a 
prehearing conference call.  Moreover, respondent attempted to delay the panel 
hearing with an unwarranted, last-minute request for a continuance. 
{¶12} Finally, with respect to Count V, the panel found that respondent 
violated DR 1-102(A)(6) and 7-104(A)(1) (improperly communicating with a 
party the attorney knows is represented by counsel) while representing a divorced 
client in a dispute over grandparent visitation.  In May 2001, respondent 
telephoned the paternal grandmother of her client’s daughter to ask for her 
attorney’s home phone number.  Respondent made this call even though she knew 
that the grandmother was represented and that the grandmother’s attorney had not 
given respondent permission to contact his client. 
{¶13} Moreover, on July 5, 2001, respondent, her small son, and her 
client went to the paternal grandparents’ home and harassed the grandmother, 
apparently in an attempt to change the granddaughter’s visitation arrangements.  
Respondent repeatedly rang the front doorbell while her client repeatedly pounded 
on another door.  The grandmother was so concerned that she called the police.  
When officers arrived, the grandmother showed them court records granting her 
and her husband visitation with the child from July 1 through July 15, 2001.  
Notwithstanding this, respondent argued with the officers until she was forced to 
leave the premises under threat of arrest. 
{¶14} Several days after this episode, respondent and her client passed 
out fliers to passersby outside a rodeo event being held by the ex-husband’s 
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family.  Respondent was arrested during the event for impeding traffic, charged 
with disorderly conduct, and subsequently convicted. 
{¶15} In recommending a sanction for this misconduct, the panel 
reviewed the mitigating and aggravating considerations in Section 10 of the Rules 
and Regulations Governing Procedure on Complaints and Hearings Before the 
Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline.  The panel found 
respondent’s lack of a prior disciplinary record mitigating but also found that 
respondent had been uncooperative, unwilling to accept responsibility, and 
unprofessional.  The panel accepted the sanction suggested by relator and 
recommended that respondent be indefinitely suspended from the practice of law.  
The board adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct and recommendation. 
{¶16} We agree that respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(4), 1-102(A)(5), 
6-101(A)(3), 7-101(A)(2), 7-101(A)(3), and 7-104(A)(1), and Gov.Bar R. 
V(4)(G).  We also agree that an indefinite suspension is a commensurate sanction 
for this misconduct. 
{¶17} Respondent committed several violations of DR 1-102(A)(4), 
which, given the dearth of mitigating factors, requires an actual suspension of 
respondent’s license.  Disciplinary Counsel v. Herman, 99 Ohio St.3d 362, 2003-
Ohio-3932, 792 N.E.2d 1078.  Moreover, respondent seriously mishandled an 
incarcerated client’s lending company, including having sold collateral put up by 
a trusting customer.  This misconduct, exacerbated by respondent’s lack of 
cooperation and professionalism, manifests respondent’s propensity for self-
dealing and warrants a sanction. 
{¶18} For these reasons, we accept the sanction recommended by the 
board.  Respondent is therefore suspended indefinitely from the practice of law in 
Ohio.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
January Term, 2003 
7 
 
MOYER, C.J., RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR and O’DONNELL, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Jonathan E. Coughlan, Disciplinary Counsel, and Stacy Solochek 
Beckman, Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, for relator. 
 
Jacqueline Tullos Johnson, pro se. 
__________________