Opinion ID: 2379892
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Cuff-Staggs Matter

Text: Respondent represented Dianne Cuff-Staggs in a 1998 divorce action. Although respondent drafted and obtained a judgment of divorce for her client, the judgment misspelled her client's name and failed to mention an oral agreement between the parties regarding the payment of household expenses. Seventeen months later, respondent filed a motion to enforce litigant's rights for payment of her client's household expenses. The family court found that motion to be totally deficient. In support of that motion, respondent had submitted a document titled, Plaintiff's Certification, which misspelled her client's first name in three different places, including on the signature line. Cuff-Staggs denied that she ever saw or signed that certification (presumably she would have corrected the misspellings of her name), and denied that she ever authorized respondent to sign the certification on her behalf. According to Cuff-Staggs, the motion requested relief from her ex-husband that she was not even seeking. Respondent offered three conflicting versions of the events surrounding Cuff[-Staggs]'s signature on the certification to the OAE and DEC. The DRB concluded that respondent misrepresented to those ethics authorities that her client authorized her to sign the certification. Based on that course of conduct, the DRB found that respondent lacked diligence, forged her client's name to a certification that she then filed with the court, and later lied to ethics authorities about the signing of the document. The DRB determined that respondent violated RPC 1.3 (lack of diligence), RPC 8.1(a) (knowingly making false statement of material fact in connection with disciplinary matter), and RPC 8.4(c) (misrepresentation).