Title: Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. Nance

State: ohio

Issuer: Ohio Supreme Court

Document:

[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it may be cited as 
Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. Nance, Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-5957.] 
 
 
 
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. 2009-OHIO-5957 
CLEVELAND METROPOLITAN BAR ASSOCIATION v. NANCE. 
[Until this opinion appears in the Ohio Official Reports advance sheets, it 
may be cited as Cleveland Metro. Bar Assn. v. Nance,  
Slip Opinion No. 2009-Ohio-5957.] 
Attorneys at law — Misconduct — Conduct adversely reflecting on fitness to 
practice law — One-year suspension with conditional six-month stay. 
(No. 2009-1145 — Submitted August 11, 2009 — Decided November 19, 2009.) 
ON CERTIFIED REPORT by the Board of Commissioners on Grievances and 
Discipline of the Supreme Court, No.  08-070. 
__________________ 
Per Curiam. 
{¶ 1} Respondent, Donald S. Nance of Cleveland, Ohio, Attorney 
Registration No. 0034086, was admitted to the practice of law in Ohio in 1979. 
{¶ 2} The Board of Commissioners on Grievances and Discipline has 
recommended that we suspend respondent’s license to practice for one year, but 
stay six months of the suspension on conditions, including that he complete 
additional legal training in bankruptcy practice and law-practice management and 
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remit or resolve all fines and costs ordered as a result of his misfilings on behalf 
of bankruptcy clients.  The board’s recommendation is based on findings that 
respondent repeatedly failed to comply with bankruptcy court filing requirements.  
Those failures, in addition to his failures to appear as ordered and his concomitant 
failure to comply with orders to disgorge fees and pay assessed fines, led to 
contempt citations.  We agree that respondent’s failings reflected adversely on his 
fitness to practice law and accept the board’s recommendation of a one-year 
license suspension, stayed in part. 
{¶ 3} Relator, Cleveland Metropolitan Bar Association, charged 
respondent with professional misconduct, including violations of DR 1-102(A)(6) 
and its successor Prof.Cond.R. 8.4(h) (both prohibiting conduct that adversely 
reflects on a lawyer’s fitness to practice law).1  A panel of three board members 
heard the case, including the parties’ stipulations to the cited misconduct, and 
recommended the one-year suspension and six-month conditional stay.  The board 
adopted the panel’s findings of misconduct and recommendation. 
{¶ 4} The parties have not objected to the board’s report. 
Misconduct 
Count I 
{¶ 5} Respondent began taking bankruptcy cases in 1981.  In April 2005, 
he filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy petition on behalf of a client in the United States 
Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Ohio.  In an electronically filed fee-
disclosure statement, respondent mistakenly represented to the court that he had 
paid the requisite filing fee when, in truth, his payment had not been accepted.  
                                                 
1.  Relator charged respondent with misconduct under applicable rules for acts occurring before 
and after February 1, 2007, the effective date of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which 
supersede the Disciplinary Rules of the Code of Professional Responsibility.  Although both the 
former and current rules are cited for the same acts, the allegations comprise a single continuing 
ethical violation.  Disciplinary Counsel v. Freeman, 119 Ohio St.3d 330, 2008-Ohio-3836, 894 
N.E.2d 31, ¶ 1, fn. 1. 
 
January Term, 2009 
3 
 
On motion of the bankruptcy trustee, the court ordered respondent to disgorge 
$200 in paid attorney fees.  Although respondent paid the missing filing fee later 
that April, he then failed for months to comply with the order to disgorge fees. 
{¶ 6} In late December 2005, after respondent failed without explanation 
to appear and show cause why he should not be held in contempt, the court 
granted the trustee’s motion and held respondent in civil contempt.  The court 
allowed him ten days to purge the contempt but then began assessing a fine of $10 
per day.  Respondent has since complied with the order to disgorge fees, and on 
December 5, 2008, the court ordered that his outstanding fines and costs, which at 
that time exceeded $7,000, be held in abeyance. 
{¶ 7} The parties stipulated and the board found that respondent had 
violated DR 1-102(A)(6) and its successor, Prof.Cond.R. 8.4(h), as charged in 
Count I.  We accept these findings of misconduct. 
Counts II and III 
{¶ 8} Respondent also conceded having mishandled two Chapter 13 
bankruptcy cases filed in 2006, as alleged in Counts II and III.  Respondent failed 
to file on behalf of each client the required signed form setting forth the “Rights 
and Responsibilities of Chapter 13 Debtors and Attorneys.”  According to the 
stipulations, the failure to file this form, which reported the preliminary attorney-
fee payment by the debtor and the fees anticipated upon confirmation of the 
reorganization plan, precludes the allowance of attorney fees other than by formal 
itemized application to the court. 
{¶ 9} The same trustee appointed to oversee the Count I bankruptcy filed 
a motion in both the Count II and III cases for an order requiring respondent to 
disgorge paid attorney fees.  The court ordered respondent in August 2006 to 
disgorge $500 to the debtor in Count II and in January 2007 to disgorge $400 to 
the debtor in Count III.  When respondent failed to pay, the trustee moved the 
court to cite him for civil contempt.  Respondent again failed without explanation 
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to appear at hearings on the motions, and the court granted both.  In March 2007, 
the court assessed a $25 fine for each day that respondent failed to remit fees to 
the debtor’s estate in Count II.  In October 2007, after denying respondent’s 
requests for relief, the court assessed a $25 fine for each day that he failed to 
remit fees to the debtor’s estate in Count III. 
{¶ 10} Respondent eventually paid $500 and $400, respectively, to the 
debtors’ estates.  On December 2, 2008, upon respondent’s motion to reinstate his 
filing privileges, the court ordered the fines and costs assessed in the Count II 
debtor’s case, which at that time exceeded $12,000, to be held in abeyance.  The 
record does not reflect whether a similar order was issued relative to the more 
than $6,500 in fees and costs assessed in the Count III debtor’s case, which 
ultimately resulted in a Chapter 7 discharge through the efforts of successor 
counsel. 
{¶ 11} As to each Count II and III, the parties stipulated and the board 
found that respondent had violated DR 1-102(A)(6) and its successor, 
Prof.Cond.R. 8.4(h).  We accept these findings of misconduct. 
Sanction 
{¶ 12} In recommending a sanction for this misconduct, the board 
considered the aggravating and mitigating factors listed in BCGD Proc.Reg. 
10(B).  As an aggravating factor under BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(1)(a), the parties 
acknowledged prior discipline imposed for respondent’s misuse of his client trust 
account – a six-month suspension from practice on July 9, 2008, stayed on 
conditions including no misconduct during the stay.  See Cuyahoga Cty. Bar 
Assn. v. Nance, 119 Ohio St.3d 55, 2008-Ohio-3333, 891 N.E.2d 746.  The parties 
also stipulated that respondent had committed multiple offenses, an aggravating 
factor under BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(1)(d).  Both considerations weigh against 
respondent. 
January Term, 2009 
5 
 
{¶ 13} Though he has since regained electronic-filing privileges, the 
bankruptcy court had revoked those privileges along with ordering the sanctions 
for respondent’s misfilings and contempt.  The parties stipulated to the mitigating 
effect of these orders under BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(2)(f) (recognizing the 
mitigating effect of penalties or sanctions imposed outside the disciplinary 
system).  The parties also stipulated that respondent’s clients were not prejudiced 
by his misconduct.  We accept these factors as mitigating. 
{¶ 14} Contrary to the parties’ stipulation, however, we do not see any 
mitigation in the fact that the same bankruptcy trustee moved for sanctions against 
respondent in each of the underlying cases.  Nothing in the record suggests that 
the trustee acted improperly.  Respondent also referred to his having health 
problems and a mental disability during the events at issue; however, he did not 
establish that either condition was mitigating as having contributed to cause his 
misconduct.  Cf. BCGD Proc.Reg. 10(B)(2)(g)(i) and (ii). 
{¶ 15} The board also expressed misgivings about respondent’s inability 
to reconcile events to which he had initially stipulated but could not clearly recall 
at the hearing.  But rather than find respondent untruthful, the board inferred only 
that he was ill prepared for the hearing.  The board also concluded that respondent 
did not appreciate the professional irresponsibility in failing to appear at his own 
contempt hearings.  The board thus found as an aggravating factor under BCGD 
Proc.Reg. 10(B)(1)(g) that respondent had refused to acknowledge the wrongful 
nature of his conduct. 
{¶ 16} As to his failure to comply with the various sanctions ordered by 
the bankruptcy court, respondent cited his declining practice and lack of financial 
resources to pay.  In fact, he did not repay the necessary attorney fees for almost 
three years after the first disgorgement order.  Respondent’s contempt fines 
remain outstanding, and he did not know whether he still owed them, given the 
orders holding some or all of the fines in abeyance. 
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{¶ 17} The board also considered sanctions imposed in similar cases: 
{¶ 18} “Relator is seeking a 12 month suspension, with 6 months stayed 
on the conditions that respondent commits no further misconduct during the 
period of the stayed suspension and attends 6 additional CLE (continuing legal 
education) hours in law practice management or bankruptcy. 
{¶ 19} “Respondent asks that any additional sanction be stayed in its 
entirety. 
{¶ 20} “Relator cites Mahoning Cty. Bar Assn. v. Olivito, 110 Ohio St.3d 
64, 2006-Ohio-3564 [850 N.E.2d 702], in support of its proposed sanction.  Even 
though Olivito’s actions occurred while representing bankruptcy clients, the panel 
finds that Cincinnati Bar Assn. v Heisler, 119 Ohio St. 3d 573, 2008-Ohio-5221 
[895 N.E.2d 839], is more on point." 
{¶ 21} Heisler defaulted on court-ordered child-support payments, but as 
the board observed, his failure to pay child support was largely the result of his 
poor financial situation.  We therefore suspended him from practice for one year 
but credited toward that suspension the time his license had already been under 
suspension pursuant to Gov.Bar R. V(5) (interim suspension upon notice of 
default on child support).  We also conditioned his reinstatement upon compliance 
with Cincinnati Bar Assn. v. Heisler, 116 Ohio St.3d 1448, 2007-Ohio-6842, 878 
N.E.2d 27 (our order finding Heisler in contempt for his failure to pay costs in a 
previous unrelated disciplinary proceeding). 
{¶ 22} The parties have not objected to the board’s recommendation.  And 
in the absence of any precedent more analogous, Heisler is authority for imposing 
a sanction of less than a one-year actual suspension when a lawyer’s financial 
distress is a major factor in the lawyer’s failure to pay funds under court order.  
The recommended one-year suspension with a six-month stay is appropriate, 
provided that respondent commit no further misconduct, complete six hours of 
CLE in law-practice management and bankruptcy practices, in addition to the 
January Term, 2009 
7 
 
general requirements of Gov.Bar R. X, and remit or resolve the payment of all 
fines and costs with the court. 
{¶ 23} Respondent is therefore suspended from the practice of law in 
Ohio for one year; however, the last six months of the suspension are stayed on 
the conditions that respondent commit no further misconduct, complete six hours 
of CLE in addition to the general requirements of Gov.Bar R. X in bankruptcy 
practice and law-practice management, and remit or resolve the payment of all 
fines and costs assessed by the bankruptcy court.  If respondent fails to comply 
with the conditions of the stay, the stay will be lifted and respondent will serve the 
entire one-year suspension. 
{¶ 24} Costs are taxed to respondent. 
Judgment accordingly. 
 
MOYER, 
C.J., 
and 
PFEIFER, 
LUNDBERG 
STRATTON, 
O’CONNOR, 
LANZINGER, and CUPP, JJ., concur. 
 
O’DONNELL, J., concurs but would stay the entire suspension. 
__________________ 
 
Heather M. Zirke, Bar Counsel, and David O. Simon, for relator. 
 
James Alexander Jr., for respondent. 
______________________