Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Wherry

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Wherry, 87 Ohio St.3d 584, 2000-Ohio-254.] 
 
 
 
 
 
OFFICE OF DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. WHERRY. 
[Cite as Disciplinary Counsel v. Wherry (2000), 87 Ohio St.3d 584.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct – Permanent disbarment — Borrowing money 
from a guardianship and lending it to another client without probate court 
permission — Filing false reports with probate court. 
(No. 99-1556 — Submitted October 12, 1999 — Decided January 19, 2000.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 98-66. 
 
On January 22, 1999, relator, Office of Disciplinary Counsel, filed an 
amended complaint charging respondent, Judith Brandes Wherry of Columbus, 
Ohio, Attorney Registration No. 0020611, with several violations of the Code of 
Professional Responsibility.  After respondent answered, a panel of the Board of 
Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the Supreme Court (“board”) 
considered the matter on stipulated facts. 
 
The panel found that in May 1994, respondent represented William 
Matthews, the beneficiary of the Corwin Matthews Trust.  The trust paid income 
from the trust corpus directly into respondent’s IOLTA (Interest on Lawyers’ Trust 
Account) to be used by respondent for the payment of Matthews’s expenses. 
 
 
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In May 1994, soon after the probate court appointed respondent as guardian 
of the person and estate of Sara E. Loughridge, respondent arranged a loan of 
$9,620 from Matthews to pay nursing home charges and rent owed by Loughridge.  
She did not report the source of the $9,620 in the Loughridge guardianship account 
she filed with the court.  Nor did she provide Matthews with any documentation 
with respect to the loan. 
 
When the guardianship made loan repayments to Matthews through 
respondent in October 1994 and January 1995, respondent retained the funds and 
did not transmit them to Matthews, claiming that Matthews owed that amount to 
her for legal fees.  Respondent did not obtain court permission for the Loughridge 
guardianship to repay the loan.  And she did not obtain the consent of Matthews to 
retain the $9,620 in fees. 
 
In September 1995, respondent, while both representing Matthews and 
serving as guardian of Loughridge, arranged a $10,000 loan to Matthews from the 
Loughridge guardianship.  She did not obtain permission of the probate court to 
make the loan, and she did not provide the guardianship with any loan 
documentation.  In April 1996 using funds that the Corwin Matthews Trust 
deposited in her IOLTA for Matthews’s expenses, respondent began repayments to 
the Loughridge guardianship.  When Loughridge died in February 1997, Matthews 
still owed approximately $7,500 to her estate, but respondent did not reveal the 
 
 
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$7,500 due from Matthews in the Loughridge inventory she filed with the probate 
court. 
 
In early 1997, the trustee of the Corwin Matthews Trust began paying 
Matthews’s expenses directly to him rather than depositing money in respondent’s 
IOLTA.  At that point, respondent told the trustee that it was she who had loaned 
the $10,000 to Matthews, and in June 1997 the trustee began making payments to 
respondent.  Respondent then transferred those amounts to the Loughridge estate. 
 
In June 1998, the probate court found that there was a deficiency of 
$20,045.44 in the Loughridge guardianship account filed by respondent, that 
$59,660.17 was withdrawn from the guardianship and could not be traced, and that 
respondent misrepresented a $9,500 loan later repaid by the guardianship.  The 
court ordered respondent’s bonding company to pay damages plus interest, 
together with a ten-percent penalty, court costs, and $14,628.02 in fees that the 
court had awarded respondent during the guardianship.  The total damages 
assessed against respondent and her bonding company were $116,914.86. 
 
The panel further found that in early 1998, Robin Turner retained respondent 
to aid in the probate of the estate of  his mother, Jewel Feyh.  Attorney Robert W. 
Cheugh II agreed to assist respondent in the administration of the estate.  In July 
1998, Cheugh forwarded to respondent a notice he received from the probate court 
that an inventory had not been filed in the Feyh estate.  In September 1998, while a 
 
 
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hearing to cite respondent and Cheugh for a delinquent estate inventory was 
pending, respondent filed an inventory signed by her brother and by Cheugh.  
Finding that his name had been signed without his permission to an inventory he 
had not reviewed or approved, Cheugh withdrew as counsel for the fiduciary and 
was replaced a month later by attorney L. Martin Cordero who then filed an 
amended inventory.  In November 1998, the probate court found respondent in 
contempt and fined her for signing Cheugh’s name without his permission. 
 
The panel concluded that respondent’s conduct in borrowing money from a 
guardianship and lending it to another client without probate court permission and 
falsely informing the court regarding the nature of and existence of the loan 
violated DR 1-102(A)(4) (a lawyer shall not engage in conduct involving 
dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation), 1-102(A)(5) (a lawyer shall not 
engage in conduct that is prejudicial to the administration of justice), 1-106(A)(6) 
(a lawyer shall not engage in conduct that adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness 
to practice law), 5-105(B) (a lawyer shall not continue multiple employment if the 
exercise of her independent professional judgment in behalf of a client will be or is 
likely to be adversely affected by her representation of another client), and 7-
101(A)(3) (a lawyer shall not prejudice or damage her client during the course of 
the professional relationship). 
 
 
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The panel further concluded that in improperly removing funds from the 
Sarah Loughridge guardianship and converting some of those funds to her own 
benefit, respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(3) (a lawyer shall not engage in illegal 
conduct involving moral turpitude), 1-102(A)(4), 1-102(A)(6), and 9-102(B)(3) (a 
lawyer shall maintain complete records of all funds, securities, and other properties 
of a client coming into her possession and render appropriate accounts to her client 
regarding them).  It concluded that in making an intentional misrepresentation to 
the Corwin Matthews Trust regarding the source of the $10,000 loan to Matthews, 
respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(4), and that by signing attorney Cheugh’s name 
on the Feyh estate inventory without authorization, respondent violated DR 1-
102(A)(3), 1-102(A)(4), 1-102(A)(5), and 1-102(A)(6). 
 
The panel considered in mitigation that respondent had significant mental 
health difficulties, but noted that she never recognized that the misuse of 
substantial guardianship funds for her own benefit was improper or illegal. 
 
The panel recommended that respondent be indefinitely suspended from the 
practice of law and that any reinstatement be conditioned on her repayment of all 
deficiencies to the Loughridge guardianship.  The board adopted the findings of 
fact and conclusions of the panel, but recommended that respondent be 
permanently disbarred from the practice of law in Ohio. 
__________________ 
 
 
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Jonathan E. Coughlan, Disciplinary Counsel, and Lori J. Brown, First 
Assistant Disciplinary Counsel, for relator. 
 
Melanie Mills, for respondent. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam.  We adopt the findings, conclusions, and recommendation of 
the board.  As we noted in Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Belock (1998), 82 Ohio St.3d 98, 
100, 694 N.E.2d 897, 899, “The continuing public confidence in the judicial 
system and the bar requires that the strictest discipline be imposed in 
misappropriation cases.”  The appropriate sanction when a lawyer knowingly 
converts funds for the lawyer’s benefit is disbarment.  Cf. Cuyahoga Cty. Bar 
Assn. v. Churilla (1997), 78 Ohio St.3d 348, 678 N.E.2d 515.  In this case, 
respondent not only converted funds but also filed false reports with the probate 
court. 
 
Respondent is hereby permanently disbarred from the practice of law in 
Ohio.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, C.J., DOUGLAS, RESNICK, F.E. SWEENEY, PFEIFER, COOK and 
LUNDBERG STRATTON, JJ., concur.