Title: Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Statzer

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Cite as Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Statzer, 101 Ohio St.3d 14, 2003-Ohio-6649.] 
 
 
CINCINNATI BAR ASSOCIATION v. STATZER. 
[Cite as Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Statzer, 101 Ohio St.3d 14, 2003-Ohio-6649.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Six-month suspension with sanction stayed on 
condition that attorney engage in no further misconduct — Engaging in 
conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation — 
Appearing in a professional capacity before a tribunal and alluding to a 
matter that will not be supported by admissible evidence. 
(No. 2003-1109 — Submitted September 16, 2003 — Decided December 31, 
2003.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No. 02-45. 
__________________ 
 
O’CONNOR, J. 
{¶1} 
Respondent, Joni Elizabeth Statzer of Cleves, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0067179, was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1996.  On June 17, 
2002, relator, Cincinnati Bar Association, charged respondent with violations of 
the Code of Professional Responsibility in a two-count complaint.  Relator later 
amended its complaint to include a third count of misconduct. 
{¶2} 
A panel appointed by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances 
and Discipline heard the cause on May 14, 2003, and made findings of fact, 
conclusions of law, and a recommendation.  The panel dismissed the first and 
second counts of the complaint, finding no clear and convincing evidence that 
respondent had violated any Disciplinary Rules.  See Gov.Bar R. V(6)(H); Ohio 
State Bar Assn. v. Reid (1999), 85 Ohio St.3d 327, 708 N.E.2d 193, paragraph two 
of the syllabus.  The first count alleged that, to avoid discipline, respondent had 
induced her former legal assistant to execute a false affidavit claiming that her 
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law office had prepared a client’s file for retrieval.  The second count alleged that 
respondent knew but did not report to relator that a former associate had induced 
the same legal assistant to provide false testimony to absolve the associate of 
blame for having missed a hearing.  The panel determined that the testimony of 
the legal assistant, a central witness on these counts, lacked credibility.  The panel 
also found that respondent’s counsel had sufficiently reported to relator that 
respondent had knowledge of claimed misconduct involving the former associate. 
{¶3} 
With respect to the third count, the record shows that respondent 
deposed her former legal assistant on November 20, 2002, in anticipation of the 
panel hearing, at the office of one of relator’s attorneys.  During the proceeding, 
which was attended by respondent’s and relator’s legal counsel, respondent 
conspicuously placed nine audio cassette tapes in front of her former legal 
assistant.  By suggestively labeling the tapes and referring to them during 
questioning, respondent implied that she had recorded conversations with the 
legal assistant that could impeach and personally embarrass the legal assistant.  
Respondent also intermittently cautioned the legal assistant to answer truthfully or 
risk perjuring herself. 
{¶4} 
Respondent’s suggestive display of the cassettes was intended to 
mislead the legal assistant.  The tapes were actually blank or held information 
unrelated to the legal assistant, and consequently, respondent did not offer the 
tapes as evidence during or after the deposition.  The panel found that respondent 
had thereby violated DR 1-102(A)(4), which prohibits a lawyer from engaging in 
conduct involving fraud, deceit, dishonesty, or misrepresentation, and DR 7-
106(C)(1), which prohibits a lawyer appearing in a professional capacity before a 
tribunal from alluding to any matter that will not be supported by admissible 
evidence. 
{¶5} 
In recommending a sanction for this misconduct, the panel 
reviewed the mitigating and aggravating considerations listed in Section 10 of the 
January Term, 2003 
3 
Rules and Regulations Governing Procedure on Complaints and Hearings Before 
the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline of the Supreme Court.  
The panel determined that in attempting to mislead the legal assistant, respondent 
“engaged in a deceptive practice during the disciplinary process.”  The panel 
found no other aggravating factors and identified no mitigating factors. 
{¶6} 
Having found that respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(4), the panel 
concluded that she should receive an actual suspension of her law license, the 
sanction ordinarily required for this infraction.  See Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. 
Florez, 98 Ohio St.3d 448, 2003-Ohio-1730, 786 N.E.2d 875, and Disciplinary 
Counsel v. Fowerbaugh (1995), 74 Ohio St.3d 187, 658 N.E.2d 237.  But, see, 
Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Cox, 98 Ohio St.3d 420, 2003-Ohio-1553, 786 N.E.2d 
454, ¶ 18; Toledo Bar Assn. v. Kramer (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 321, 323, 731 
N.E.2d 643 (A lesser sanction may be appropriate for an attorney’s violation of 
DR 1-102[A][4] where the misconduct is an isolated incident in an otherwise 
unblemished legal career).  The panel also found respondent’s misconduct similar 
to that committed in Columbus Bar Assn. v. King (1998), 84 Ohio St.3d 174, 702 
N.E.2d 862, wherein two attorneys were disciplined for surreptitiously taping a 
telephone call in which one of them had solicited arguably slanderous remarks 
about his client from an opposing party and then added the slander allegation to 
the pending claim.  In King, we suspended one attorney from the practice of law 
for one year, suspended the other attorney for six months, and conditionally 
stayed both suspensions.  Here, the panel recommended suspending respondent’s 
license for one year and staying six months of that sanction on the condition that 
she engage in no further misconduct.  Pursuant to Gov.Bar R. V(6)(L), the board 
adopted the panel’s findings and recommendation. 
{¶7} 
Relator urges us to find that respondent lied during the 
investigation leading to Count I about whether she had actually returned the 
client’s case file that was the subject of the prior grievance against her.  In 
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response to relator’s inquiry, respondent assured the investigator in writing that 
the client’s file had been copied and made available to the client, and she included 
with her response the legal assistant’s affidavit, later recanted, to this effect.  
Relator argues that this representation is contradicted by other documents in 
which respondent stated that she would not release the file until the client paid her 
legal fees, by the client’s new attorneys, who testified that respondent did not 
comply with their requests for the file, and by her former client, who testified that 
she never received the file.  Relator insists that these contradictions discredit 
respondent’s story, notwithstanding the legal assistant’s unreliable account of 
what may or may not have happened after the client discharged respondent. 
{¶8} 
Upon review, we acknowledge that these inconsistencies exist; 
however, they do not warrant disregarding the panel’s findings as adopted by the 
board.  The panel observed the witnesses firsthand and thus possessed an enviable 
vantage point in assessing the credibility and weight of their testimony.  For this 
reason, we ordinarily defer to a panel’s credibility determinations in our 
independent review of professional discipline cases unless the record weighs 
heavily against those findings.  Cleveland Bar Assn. v. Cleary (2001), 93 Ohio 
St.3d 191, 198, 754 N.E.2d 235. 
{¶9} 
Here, the panel questioned respondent at length and unanimously 
dismissed Count I after finding insufficient evidence to conclude that she had 
acted dishonestly.  Supplanting the panel’s judgment on this issue would require 
proof of the variety in Findlay/Hancock Cty. Bar Assn. v. Filkins (2000), 90 Ohio 
St.3d 1, 734 N.E.2d 764, in which we rejected recommended findings of 
misconduct because the panel had relied largely on the uncorroborated testimony 
of a witness who had admittedly lied often, including once under oath.  The 
inconsistencies asserted by relator simply do not compare.  Relator’s first 
objection, therefore, is overruled, and we adopt the recommendation to dismiss 
Count I. 
January Term, 2003 
5 
{¶10} Additionally, relator objects to the panel’s unanimous decision to 
dismiss Count II.  Relator argues that respondent had a duty to report under DR 1-
103(A) (a lawyer possessing unprivileged knowledge of misconduct as defined by 
DR 1-102 shall report such knowledge to an appropriate authority) that her legal 
assistant told respondent that she had testified falsely at the direction of 
respondent’s former associate.  We disagree, again out of deference to the panel.  
The panel found that the allegations in Count II depended “in large part” on the 
legal assistant’s “frail credibility.”  We take from this that the panel considered 
the legal assistant’s claim so inherently unreliable that, in retrospect, it did not 
invoke the reporting requirement in DR 1-103(A), regardless of whether the claim 
ultimately turned out to be true.  Moreover, the panel found that respondent’s 
counsel did report to relator other allegations of misconduct against the associate 
that were based on respondent’s personal experience.  Accordingly, relator’s 
second objection is also overruled, and Count II is dismissed. 
{¶11} In her objections to the panel’s findings as adopted by the board 
relative to Count III, respondent asserts that while DR 7-106(C)(1) prohibits an 
attorney’s reference to matters that will not be supported by admissible evidence 
when appearing “before a tribunal,” it does not apply to the deposition respondent 
conducted at the office of relator’s attorney.  Respondent also contends that her 
conduct during the deposition of the legal assistant did not constitute a violation 
of DR 1-102(A)(4).  We reject both arguments. 
{¶12} “Tribunal” is defined in the Code of Professional Responsibility as 
“all courts and all other adjudicatory bodies,” but we have not construed this term 
as narrowly as respondent urges us to do today.  In Disciplinary Counsel v. Levin 
(1988), 35 Ohio St.3d 4, 517 N.E.2d 892, an attorney became verbally abusive 
during a deposition.  We found that in making his insulting and profane remarks, 
the attorney had acted before a tribunal in violation of DR 7-106(C)(2) (asking 
any question before a tribunal that the attorney has no reason to believe is relevant 
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to the case and that is intended to degrade a witness or other person), 7-106(C)(5) 
(failing to comply with known local customs of courtesy or practice while 
appearing before a tribunal), 7-106(C)(6) (engaging in undignified or discourteous 
conduct degrading to a tribunal), and 7-106(C)(7) (intentionally or habitually 
violating an established rule of procedure or evidence).  Id. at 7, 517 N.E.2d 892. 
{¶13} We continue to adhere to this view.  Although depositions are 
conventionally conducted without direct judicial supervision, such proceedings 
are nevertheless always subject to judicial intervention and oversight under Civ.R. 
30(D) (court may terminate or limit the scope of a deposition upon a showing of 
bad faith or harassment on the part of a deponent or party) and, thus, are within 
the boundaries of the judicial setting.  And because there is ordinarily no 
presiding authority, “it is even more incumbent upon attorneys to conduct 
themselves in a professional and civil manner during a deposition.”  Matter of 
Golden (1998), 329 S.C. 335, 343, 496 S.E.2d 619. 
{¶14} Depositions may be used to investigate an adversary’s case or to 
preserve testimony for impeachment or for the record.  Civ.R. 32(A).  Any 
deposition that is to be used as evidence must generally be filed in court.  Id.  It 
therefore follows that these proceedings are to be conducted as if before a 
tribunal, including in accordance with DR 7-106(C)(1).  In fact, depositions taken 
in Gov.Bar R. V proceedings must be filed with the board pursuant to Civ.R. 32.  
Section 3(B) of the Rules and Regulations Governing Procedure on Complaints 
and Hearings Before the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline. 
{¶15} Respondent, however, urges us to distinguish trial conduct from 
“discovery depositions,” arguing that the latter require greater freedom of inquiry 
into matters that may be relevant but inadmissible.  See Civ.R. 26(B)(1) 
(inadmissible evidence reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of 
admissible evidence is also discoverable).  This was particularly the case, 
respondent insists, in the deposition of the legal assistant.  She argues that wide 
January Term, 2003 
7 
latitude was imperative during that proceeding to draw honest testimony from a 
theretofore untrustworthy witness and that use of the audio cassette tapes was 
merely a tactic intended to achieve this legitimate end. 
{¶16} We recognize that the discovery process, particularly the pursuit of 
information through deposition, cannot be overly restricted if it is to remain 
effective.  We must draw the line, however, when an attorney engages in 
subterfuge that intimidates a witness.  While respondent’s primary purpose during 
the legal assistant’s deposition may have been to elicit the truth, her tactic also 
tricked the legal assistant into thinking that the revelation of embarrassing 
confidences was at stake. 
{¶17} Throughout these proceedings, respondent has asserted that her 
“bluff” worked.  Regardless, the success of her tactic is not at issue, and 
respondent can not, with any degree of certainty, assert that her witness would not 
have testified truthfully in the absence of her subterfuge.  Further, while such 
deception may induce truthful testimony, it is just as likely to elicit lies if a 
witness believes that lies will offer security from the false threat.  Respondent’s 
deceitful tactic intimidated her witness by creating the false impression that 
respondent possessed compromising personal information that she could offer as 
evidence.  For these reasons, we agree that respondent violated DR 1-102(A)(4) 
and 7-106(C)(1). 
{¶18} As a sanction for respondent’s misconduct, relator advocates 
respondent’s indefinite suspension from the practice of law based on arguments 
that respondent committed misconduct in connection with Counts I and II, in 
addition to Count III.  Respondent, on the other hand, argues that the complaint 
should be dismissed.  In the alternative, she asserts that the panel and board 
ignored mitigating evidence and, therefore, the sanction recommended by the 
board—a one-year suspension with six months conditionally stayed—is too 
severe.  Respondent proposes that a public reprimand would be more appropriate. 
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{¶19} We find that either proposed sanction, as well as the board’s 
recommendation, would be incommensurate with respondent’s misconduct.  An 
indefinite suspension would be too harsh in light of our dismissal of Counts I and 
II, while no more than a public reprimand would unduly minimize the severity of 
respondent’s conduct. 
{¶20} As to the board’s recommendation, we find that there are 
mitigating factors for which the board did not account.  Specifically, the panel and 
board did not mention that there is no evidence of respondent’s having been 
professionally disciplined before now, the grievances lodged against her 
notwithstanding.  Moreover, respondent has a professional history of dutiful 
service to clients, including the client whose case file she supposedly has not 
returned.  In fact, another of respondent’s associates testified that respondent had 
worked tirelessly on this client’s behalf for years while representing her in a 
contentious divorce and related allegations of abuse.  Finally, respondent 
cooperated in these proceedings. 
{¶21} On the basis of these mitigating factors, we temper our disposition 
in accordance with the rule that a stayed suspension is sometimes warranted by 
mitigating concerns, notwithstanding a violation of DR 1-102(A)(4).  See 
Disciplinary Counsel v. Markijohn, 99 Ohio St.3d 489, 2003-Ohio-4129, 794 
N.E.2d 24 (attorney who falsely reported contributions to his law firm’s 
retirement plan violated DR 1-102[A][4], but his good character, lack of any 
disciplinary record, and personal difficulties were sufficiently mitigating to stay 
the ordered six-month suspension), and Disciplinary Counsel v. Wrenn, 99 Ohio 
St.3d 222, 2003-Ohio-3288, 790 N.E.2d 1195 (assistant prosecutor who did not 
disclose potentially exculpatory DNA results violated DR 1-102[A][4] and three 
other Disciplinary Rules, but his background and acknowledged poor judgment 
were sufficiently mitigating to stay the ordered six-month suspension). 
January Term, 2003 
9 
{¶22} Consistent with this authority, we order that respondent be 
suspended from the practice of law in Ohio for six months, and we stay this 
sanction on the condition that she engage in no further misconduct.  If respondent 
violates this condition, the stay will be lifted, and respondent will serve the entire 
period of actual suspension.  Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
RESNICK, PFEIFER, LUNDBERG STRATTON, O’CONNOR and O’DONNELL, 
JJ., concur. 
 
MOYER, C.J., and F.E. SWEENEY, J., dissent. 
__________________ 
 
MOYER, C.J., dissenting. 
{¶23} I respectfully dissent from the sanction imposed on respondent by 
the majority.  For the reasons that follow, I would suspend respondent for one 
year and stay six months of the suspension on condition that she engage in no 
further misconduct. 
I 
Erroneous Dismissal of Count I 
{¶24} The board dismissed Count I of relator’s complaint.  Count I 
alleged facts that, if true, warrant the conclusion that respondent lied to the bar 
association in a written response to a disciplinary grievance filed against her in 
2000 and that, to support that lie, she provided the bar association with evidence 
she knew to be misleading at best, i.e., an affidavit that had been executed by her 
legal assistant. 
{¶25} In correspondence related to that grievance, respondent stated that 
a former client had, in fact, been “given copies of all papers in her file” at her 
request.  To support that assertion, respondent provided the bar association with 
an affidavit executed by her legal assistant representing that the assistant had 
“prepared a complete photocopy of [the former client’s] domestic relations file, 
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and left it at the front desk for [the former client] to pick up” in January 1999.  
The legal assistant averred in her affidavit that she assumed that the file had been 
“picked up by [the former client] as it is no longer at the front desk.” 
{¶26} If the majority views the first count of the complaint as 
constituting a charge that respondent solicited the execution of a false affidavit, 
then the board’s dismissal of Count I arguably is justified.  The respondent 
testified that she did not ask the legal assistant to prepare the affidavit (although 
she did declare that she felt justified in supplying the bar association with the 
affidavit because its contents reflected “what Jennifer told [her] to be true”).  The 
legal assistant testified that the respondent had asked her to prepare the false 
affidavit.  In view of the board’s conclusion that the legal assistant lacked 
credibility, the relator did not provide clear and convincing evidence to rebut 
respondent’s testimony that she did not ask the legal assistant to execute a false 
affidavit. 
{¶27} When the first count of the complaint is appropriately viewed more 
broadly, it is clear that the relator did establish, by clear and convincing evidence, 
that respondent had engaged in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or 
misrepresentation, even if the testimony of the legal assistant is disregarded for 
lack of credibility.  The legal assistant’s affidavit, offered by the respondent, 
constitutes a representation by the respondent that the former client was presented 
with a complete copy of her file in January 1999. 
{¶28} The record contains clear and convincing evidence that the 
respondent was well aware that the client had not received a copy of her file in 
January 1999.  In December 1998, respondent wrote her client, indicating that she 
would provide a copy of the file only upon receipt of a check for $15,000.  On 
February 23, 1999, subsequent to the time period referenced in the legal 
assistant’s affidavit, respondent wrote to the client’s new attorney, “If I receive a 
check of $3,000.00, I will, immediately within 24 hours, turn over her file to 
January Term, 2003 
11 
you.”  She added, “If I do not receive that token payment, you will not be 
receiving any files from my office.”  In November 1999, respondent filed answers 
to interrogatories served upon her by her former client, whom she had sued for the 
payment of legal fees.  In those answers, respondent asserted that she would not 
produce her former client’s file because it “is too voluminous to copy, and also 
there is an attorney’s lien on this information.”  She further answered, “The file is 
available for inspection at any time in my office.  I will also make it available for 
the court hearing.  However, I will not release it because of the lien.” 
{¶29} Her representation to the bar that the former client had in fact 
received the file was clearly and convincingly proven to be “conduct involving 
dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation” in violation of DR 1-102(A)(4).  
Therefore, I do not believe the board should have dismissed Count I of the 
complaint. 
II 
Sanction 
{¶30} Respondent acknowledges that she engaged in a deceptive practice 
while deposing her former legal assistant during the course of the bar 
association’s disciplinary investigation of her.  Yet she shows no remorse for that 
conduct.  She continues to assert that her intentional use of deceit was justified 
and implies that it is perfectly appropriate to deceive a witness in the course of a 
deposition in order to “encourage” the witness to testify truthfully.  She thus 
apparently believes that the ends (obtaining truthful testimony from a witness) 
justify the means (intentionally deceiving a witness). 
{¶31} Respondent affirmatively argues that it was appropriate to 
intentionally create a false impression in the mind of the deposition witness, her 
former legal assistant, because the witness herself had been untruthful in the past.  
She asserts that attorneys frequently engage in competitive endeavors “no 
different” from other activities in which “two opposing sides vie for victory” and 
SUPREME COURT OF OHIO 
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characterizes her actions as meeting “fire with fire.”  She analogizes litigation to a 
game of poker, in which “bluffs” are commonly employed. 
{¶32} In my view, however, attorneys must be held to ethical standards 
higher than those expected of poker players.  Attorneys are not justified in 
employing deception even when they believe that the person with whom they are 
dealing is untruthful.  Were we to condone such conduct, the practice of law 
would likely quickly slide to the lowest levels of ethical behavior.  The maxim 
taught us as children remains valid: two wrongs do not make a right. 
{¶33} The board recommended that respondent be suspended for a period 
of one year, with six months of the suspension to be stayed on condition that she 
engage in no further misconduct.  I agree with that recommendation.  I believe 
that the mitigation cited by the majority is counterbalanced by the respondent’s 
failure to appreciate the wrongfulness of her conduct.  The sanction imposed by 
the majority sends the wrong message to the bar and to the public.  I would adopt 
the recommendation of the board. 
 
F.E. SWEENEY, J., concurs in the foregoing dissenting opinion. 
__________________ 
 
Clements, Mahin & Cohen, L.L.P., and William E. Clements; Rendigs, 
Fry, Kiely & Dennis, L.L.P., and Carolyn A. Taggart, for relator. 
 
Timothy A. Smith and Lester S. Potash, for respondent. 
__________________