Title: Disciplinary Counsel v. Mamich

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Disciplinary Counsel v. Mamich, Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-1044.] 
 
 
 
 
NOTICE 
This slip opinion is subject to formal revision before it is published in 
an advance sheet of the Ohio Official Reports.  Readers are requested 
to promptly notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of Ohio, 
65 South Front Street, Columbus, Ohio 43215, of any typographical or 
other formal errors in the opinion, in order that corrections may be 
made before the opinion is published. 
 
SLIP OPINION NO. 2010-OHIO-1044 
DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL v. MAMICH. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Disciplinary Counsel v. Mamich,  
Slip Opinion No. 2010-Ohio-1044.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Conduct prejudicial to administration of 
justice — Failure to withdraw from representation — Six-month 
suspension, stayed. 
(No. 2009-2010 — Submitted January 13, 2010 — Decided March 25, 2010.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 09-036. 
__________________ 
 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Samuel Jay Mamich of Beachwood, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0006097, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1973.  
The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline recommends that we 
suspend respondent’s license to practice for six months, with the entire six months 
stayed, based on findings that he represented a client’s daughter in a legal matter 
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without the daughter’s knowledge or consent.  We accept the board’s findings of 
professional misconduct and the recommendation of a six-month stayed 
suspension. 
{¶ 2} Relator, Disciplinary Counsel, charged respondent with violations 
of the Rules of Professional Conduct.  The parties stipulated to the facts, 
misconduct, and mitigating factors, and jointly recommended that the board 
impose the sanction of a 12-month suspension, with the suspension stayed on the 
condition that respondent commit no further misconduct during his suspension.  A 
panel of three board members heard the case and made findings of fact and 
conclusions of law.  The panel dismissed several charges for lack of the requisite 
clear and convincing evidence and recommended the six-month stayed 
suspension.  The board adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct and 
recommended sanction. 
{¶ 3} The parties have not objected to the board’s report. 
Misconduct 
{¶ 4} The parties stipulated that in November 2003, a client of 
respondent applied online for and was issued a bank credit card in his daughter’s 
name without her knowledge or consent.  Three years later, the bank sold the debt 
that had accumulated on the credit card account to John Soliday Financial Group, 
L.L.C.  In February 2007, the new creditor filed a complaint in the Cuyahoga 
County Court of Common Pleas against the daughter seeking $1,040.80 in 
principal, $380.96 in accrued interest, and additional interest at the rate of 16 
percent per year.  The father was not named as a defendant in the case, and when 
an answer was not filed on behalf of the daughter, the creditor moved for default 
judgment. 
{¶ 5} The father contacted respondent to enter an appearance on behalf 
of his daughter at a hearing on the motion for default and to defend her in the 
case.  The father advised respondent that he had applied for the credit card in his 
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name and that he had added his daughter’s name to the account as an authorized 
user.  Respondent did not learn that the card had been issued solely in the 
daughter’s name until after disciplinary proceedings had begun against him.  The 
father also informed respondent that the debt on the credit card was his and that 
his daughter knew nothing about the credit card, the default-judgment hearing, or 
the case. 
{¶ 6} Respondent advised the father to contact his daughter so that she 
could defend herself against the lawsuit, but the father told respondent that his 
daughter was traveling and that he preferred not to alarm her because it was his 
debt.  Unbeknownst to respondent, the daughter was living in the central Ohio 
area during the entire time that the case was pending.  Despite knowing that the 
daughter was not aware of the credit card or the case and that the father did not 
want to notify her, respondent agreed to appear at the hearing on the daughter’s 
behalf and to defend her in the case.  The father also authorized respondent to 
offer $300 to settle the case. 
{¶ 7} As the case progressed, respondent offered the settlement, 
appeared at the default-judgment hearing and a case-management hearing, and on 
behalf of the daughter, filed an answer to the complaint and a response to a 
motion for summary judgment.  Respondent did not notify or receive 
authorization from her for any of these actions. 
{¶ 8} In submitting a response to the creditor’s motion for summary 
judgment, respondent attached an affidavit of the father stating that the credit-card 
debt was his and that his daughter knew nothing about the account or the debt.  
The father agreed to personally file the response, but his affidavit was not 
attached to the filed response.  Respondent was not aware that the affidavit was 
not filed with the response until after disciplinary proceedings had commenced. 
{¶ 9} In December 2007, the court entered summary judgment in favor 
of the creditor against the daughter.  Respondent notified the father of the court’s 
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decision, but he did not notify the daughter.  Respondent did not receive any 
compensation from the father for his services in the case. 
{¶ 10} Thereafter, the daughter received notice from her employer that it 
was withholding wages from her paycheck to satisfy the judgment against her.  
This was the first time that the daughter knew about the case.  She retained an 
attorney, who filed a motion to vacate the judgment, stay the garnishment, and 
return the garnished funds.  The court temporarily stayed the garnishment after 
more than $1,000 had been garnished from the daughter’s wages. 
{¶ 11} Once respondent learned of the daughter’s motion to vacate the 
judgment, he contacted her attorney and told her the entire story and agreed to 
testify as a witness on her behalf.  In his testimony, respondent admitted that he 
had appeared in court and filed documents on the daughter’s behalf without her 
knowledge or consent and that he had not contacted her in any way while the case 
was pending.  The court vacated the judgment and ordered that the previously 
garnished wages be returned to the daughter. 
{¶ 12} Respondent admitted that during his representation of his client’s 
daughter in the common pleas court case, he violated Prof.Cond.R. 1.7(a)(2) 
(incorporated in 1.7(b) [prohibiting a lawyer from continuing to represent a client 
when there is a substantial risk that the lawyer’s ability to consider, recommend, 
or carry out an appropriate course of action for that client will be materially 
limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to a third person]), 1.16(a)(1) (prohibiting 
a lawyer from representing a client, or when representation has commenced, 
requiring the lawyer to withdraw from the representation of the client,  if the 
representation will result in a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct or 
other law), 5.4(c) (prohibiting a lawyer from permitting a person who 
recommends, employs, or pays the lawyer to render legal services for another to 
direct or regulate the lawyer’s professional judgment in rendering the legal 
services), and 8.4(d) (prohibiting a lawyer from engaging in conduct that is 
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prejudicial to the administration of justice).  We agree with the board that there is 
clear and convincing evidence that respondent committed these violations. 
{¶ 13} Respondent also admitted violations of Prof.Cond.R. 1.2(a) 
(requiring a lawyer to abide by a client’s decision whether to settle a matter), 
1.4(a)(1) (requiring a lawyer to inform the client of any decision or circumstance 
for which the client’s informed consent is required), and 1.4(a)(3) (requiring a 
lawyer to keep the client reasonably informed about the status of the matter).  We 
agree with the board, however, that these latter charges have not been established, 
because they required an attorney-client relationship between respondent and his 
client’s daughter.  Manifestly, there was no express attorney-client relationship 
between respondent and his client’s daughter.  Moreover, there was no implied 
attorney-client relationship because the daughter was unaware of the case and had 
no reasonable expectation that respondent was representing her.  See Cuyahoga 
Cty. Bar Assn. v. Hardiman, 100 Ohio St.3d 260, 2003-Ohio-5596, 798 N.E.2d 
369, syllabus (“An attorney-client relationship may be created by implication 
based upon the conduct of the parties and the reasonable expectations of the 
person seeking representation”).  Therefore, we dismiss these unproven charged 
violations. 
Sanction 
{¶ 14} When imposing sanctions for attorney misconduct, we weigh the 
evidence of aggravating and mitigations factors, including those listed in Section 
10(B)(1) and (2) of the Rules and Regulations Governing Procedure on 
Complaints and Hearings Before the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline (“BCGD Proc.Reg.”).  We also consider other relevant factors, 
including the sanctions imposed in similar cases.  Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. 
Kaplan, 124 Ohio St.3d 278, 2010-Ohio-167, 921 N.E.2d 645, ¶ 11. 
{¶ 15} The parties jointly recommended a 12-month stayed suspension 
conditioned on respondent committing no further misconduct during his 
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suspension.  The board, however, recommends a lesser sanction of a six-month 
stayed suspension.  For the following reasons, we agree that the board’s 
recommended lesser sanction is appropriate. 
{¶ 16} First, the parties’ recommendation of a harsher sanction was 
predicated in part on several disciplinary violations that have been dismissed. 
{¶ 17} Second, as the board found, there are no aggravating factors, and 
there are several mitigating factors – respondent has no prior disciplinary record 
in an otherwise unblemished legal career of over 35 years, respondent had no 
dishonest or selfish motive, and he cooperated fully in the disciplinary 
investigation.  BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(2)(a), (b), and (d).  Respondent could have 
relied on his client’s claimed power of attorney from the daughter, but he was 
justifiably concerned that his client had falsified it, and he admitted that it was not 
the basis for his representation of the daughter in the case.  And when he learned 
about his client’s deception, respondent testified on the daughter’s behalf in 
support of her motion to vacate the judgment. 
{¶ 18} Finally, in comparable cases, we have imposed a lesser sanction.  
In Disciplinary Counsel v. Ita, 117 Ohio St.3d 477, 2008-Ohio-1508, 884 N.E.2d 
1073, we publicly reprimanded a lawyer who filed a pleading without the 
permission of one of his clients.  The lawyer, who filed a personal-injury suit on 
behalf of his client, included a loss-of-consortium claim on behalf of his client’s 
wife even though the lawyer never communicated with the wife or inquired about 
her status, when actually, the wife and client had separated.  The couple later 
divorced, and the client ultimately settled his personal-injury claim, dismissed the 
loss-of-consortium claim with prejudice, and agreed to indemnify the defendant 
against any potential liability on the loss-of-consortium claim. 
{¶ 19} Similarly, in Columbus Bar Assn. v. Mangan, 123 Ohio St.3d 250, 
2009-Ohio-5287, 915 N.E.2d 651, ¶ 17, we publicly reprimanded a lawyer who 
“failed to communicate with clients in a family setting, failed to ascertain their 
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interests, and failed to obtain their informed consent to the multiple 
representation.” 
{¶ 20} This case differs from Ita, a case cited by relator and the board in 
this disciplinary case, because the client’s daughter here had to employ an 
attorney to vacate the judgment entered without her knowledge or consent, and 
her wages were garnished before she knew what had occurred.  Consequently, a 
more severe sanction than a public reprimand is justified. 
{¶ 21} Therefore, after considering the pertinent mitigating factors as well 
as comparable precedent, we agree that the sanction recommended by the board is 
commensurate with respondent’s misconduct.  Respondent is hereby suspended 
from the practice of law for six months, with the entire six-month period stayed 
on the condition that respondent commit no further misconduct.  If respondent 
fails to comply with the terms of the stay, the stay will be lifted, and respondent 
will serve the six-month suspension.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, 
C.J., 
and 
PFEIFER, 
LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR, 
O’DONNELL, LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
__________________ 
 
Jonathan E. Coughlan, Disciplinary Counsel, and Karen H. Osmond, Staff 
Attorney, for relator. 
 
Zipkin Whiting Co., L.P.A., and David M. Smith, for respondent. 
_____________________