Opinion ID: 2624513
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: DA9456Complaint of Ramon Ybarra

Text: With regard to Ybarra's complaint, the hearing panel found the following facts. On January 7, 1998, Ybarra was involved in an automobile accident in Seward County, Kansas. Humberto Lopez, driving a vehicle in the opposite direction of Ybarra, crossed the center line and struck Ybarra's vehicle head-on. After that collision, a vehicle driven by Roger Schultz and owned by Diamond F. Corporation, struck Ybarra's car from behind. As a result of the accident, Ybarra suffered significant injuries. Ybarra retained Swanson to file a civil suit seeking damages for his injuries, and Swanson accepted the representation on a contingency fee basis. However, Swanson failed to reduce the agreement to writing. On November 1, 1999, Swanson filed suit on behalf of Ybarra. At the time Swanson filed the cause of action, he also filed a document titled Declaration of No Service of Summons. In that document, Swanson directed the clerk of the district court to refrain from issuing summonses to the defendants. At the disciplinary hearing on this matter, Swanson offered no explanation for declining to have the defendants served at the time he filed the case. After Swanson filed suit, Ybarra had difficulty reaching him to obtain information regarding the status of his case. On the occasions when Ybarra was able to reach Swanson, he assured Ybarra that he was actively pursuing the personal injury case. Yet, despite assurances to the contrary, after filing suit Swanson took no additional action to prosecute the case or to obtain service of process on the defendants. On May 19, 2000, the district court issued a Notice of Intent to Dismiss by the Court for Lack of Prosecution. After Ybarra received the court's notice and because Swanson had not made any progress in the case, Ybarra contacted Diane Barger and requested that she enter her appearance on Ybarra's behalf in the pending personal injury litigation. Barger insisted that Ybarra terminate Swanson's representation in writing before she would enter her appearance. On May 24, 2000, Ybarra forwarded a letter terminating Swanson's representation. The letter provided: This letter is to inform you that since we aren't making any progress on my injury case, I have no other alternative but to look for other counsel to represent me on this matter. So as of May 24, 2000 you are hereby terminated. As to my case file please turn it over to the attorney that I have hired to represent me on this matter. Ybarra retained Barger, and they entered into a written agreement. Then, on May 27, 2000, Barger wrote to Swanson requesting that he forward her a complete copy of Ybarra's file. Ybarra also executed a release, authorizing Swanson to forward his file to Barger, and on June 8, 2000, an employee of Barger's picked up the file from Swanson. Barger had learned that Swanson had never obtained service of process on the defendants in Ybarra's civil suit. On June 2, 2000, Barger put Swanson on notice that his failure to obtain service on the defendants amounted to negligent representation of Ybarra. He did not respond to Barger's letter. After obtaining the court's permission for more time to obtain service on the defendants, Barger served the defendants with copies of the summons in July 2000. After Ybarra terminated Swanson's legal representation and retained Barger, Swanson continued to contact Ybarra and to act on his behalf-in one instance by contacting the insurance carrier. Barger wrote to Swanson and directed him to stop contacting Ybarra, but Swanson did not respond to Barger's letter. At some point, attorney Randall E. Fisher joined Barger in the representation of Ybarra. After Schultz and Diamond filed their answer to Ybarra's first amended petition, they filed a motion to dismiss based on the statute of limitations. Thereafter, Fisher wrote to Swanson to put him on notice that he faced a potential legal malpractice claim and to ask him to forward any evidence which could be used in defense to the motion to dismiss. Swanson did not respond to Fisher's letter. On March 19, 2001, the district court granted the motion to dismiss filed by Schultz and Diamond. Despite the statute of limitations, Lopez agreed to settle the suit by paying Ybarra the insurance policy limit of $25,000, presumably to avoid litigation costs. Also, because Ybarra's injuries exceeded Lopez' insurance policy limit, Ybarra's underinsurance policy, with a $1 million limit, applied. Utica National Assurance Company was the insurance provider for Ybarra's underinsurance policy, and at some point, Utica intervened in the suit. Utica failed to effect a timely substitution of its $25,000 for the liability policy limits applicable to Lopez, and, as a result, Ybarra's case proceeded against Utica. At a bench trial, the court found Lopez 75 percent liable and Schultz 25 percent liable. Further, the court determined Ybarra's damages to be $456,000. Utica was ordered to pay $317,000 less the previous payment of personal injury protection (PIP) benefits in the amount of $27,000, for a net judgment of $290,000. Utica paid the judgment. Because the district court found Schultz 25 percent liable, it attributed $114,000 of Ybarra's damages to Schultz. Ybarra was unable, however, to collect that portion of his damages from Schultz because Schultz and Diamond had been dismissed from the suit due to the failure to comply with the statute of limitations. On August 1, 2002, Barger wrote to Swanson again and updated him regarding the status of the case. She also notified him that Ybarra would be proceeding against him to collect the $114,000. Again, Swanson failed to respond to Barger's letter. Because Ybarra was unable to collect that portion of his damages from Schultz, Barger and Fisher filed suit in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas against Swanson seeking damages in the amount of $114,000. In a letter to Fisher, dated January 3, 2003, Swanson alleged that his attorney-client relationship with Ybarra was terminated by [Ybarra] and that [Swanson] was advised by [Ybarra] that [Ybarra] was hiring another attorney before time for service of process expired. On February 10, 2003, Swanson filed a third-party petition against Barger alleging that she was attorney of record and that any damages were the result of Ybarra's negligence and Barger's negligence. Then, in a document sent June 9, 2003, Swanson asserted: [Swanson] denies that [he] failed to timely prosecute the case. [Swanson] denies that [he] failed to obtain timely service of process on the Defendants in that case. [Swanson]'s relationship as attorney for [Ybarra] was terminated by [Ybarra]; and [Swanson] was advised by [Ybarra] that [he] was hiring another attorney before time of service of process had expired. [Ybarra] knew of the expiration of time to issue service of process and advised [Swanson] that [Ybarra] was hiring another attorney and would issue the service of process all before the time expired to issue service of process. On June 19, 2003, Swanson requested that Fisher include the following passages in the pretrial order: [64] 2. Estoppel. [Ybarra] terminated the contractual relationship between [Ybarra] and [Swanson] shortly after November 1999, thereby relieving [Swanson] from any further contractual responsibility by [Swanson] due [Ybarra]. .... [64] 2. [Swanson] was advised by [Ybarra] before the service of process deadline, that [he] was terminating the contractual relationship between [Ybarra] and [Swanson], and that [Ybarra] had already hired a new attorney and advised the new attorney of the status of the case and service of process issues. If that new attorney did not issue service of process, then that negligence, if any should be compared to the [Ybarra] and [Swanson]. For the first time, on April 7, 2004, in his Amended Witness and Exhibit List filed in the professional malpractice case, Swanson specifically asserted that Ybarra terminated the representation on December 2, 1999, by written correspondence. Swanson identified a letter which purported to be from Ybarra, dated December 2, 1999, and which provided as follows: This letter is to inform you that since we aren't making any progress on my injury case, I have no other alternative but to look for other counsel to represent me on this matter. So as of December 02, 1999 you are hereby terminated. As to my case file please let me know when I can pick it up. Other than the words in bold and the date, the letter dated December 2, 1999, is identical to the letter dated May 24, 2000. Notwithstanding the alleged existence of the December 2, 1999, letter, the date of this letter was not specifically referred to or identified in Swanson's previous correspondence. Additionally, a copy of the December 2, 1999, letter was not in the materials provided to Barger's employee on June 8, 2000. At the hearing on this matter, Ybarra testified that he did not terminate Swanson's representation in December 1999. Ybarra clearly testified that he did not terminate Swanson's representation until May 24, 2000. Ybarra testified that he threatened to terminate Swanson's representation earlier, although he could not recall specifically when that was. Ybarra also testified that he might have prepared a letter sometime in December 1999, but he never sent it because Swanson talked him out of firing him. During a hearing in the professional negligence case, the district court asked Swanson why he had not previously produced the December 2, 1999, letter. The exchange was as follows: THE COURT: Why wasn't the letter produced? MR. SWANSON: Your Honor, I don't know why the letter was not produced. I had a flood in my office on May 15th of '03, and I have had all kinds of files that I have rearranged and transferred and tried to pull apart because they were stuck together, and I can't tell you why it was not produced. There was no intent on [my part] to not produce this document. I think thatthis document is the same document that [Ybarra], himself, has been aware of since December of 1999, so this is no surprise to [Ybarra] at all about this document. This December 2, 1999 document written by [Ybarra] terminating me as his attorney of record, that document has been in [Ybarra]'s possession. [He] knew of that document, and why [Ybarra] did or did not tell [his] attorney, I don't know. But there's no surprise about that document.... Well, I can't tell you that I lost it in the flood. I'm not trying to make up things. I'm telling you that this file, along with a whole bunch of files, were in disarray because they were sitting on the floor, and I had four inches of water. At the disciplinary hearing, Swanson explained why he did not produce the December 2, 1999, letter earlier in a number of different ways. He testified that he had a flood in his office, it was a frivolous claim and the jury agreed with him, he could not locate the original copy of the letter and Ybarra's daughter later gave him a copy of the letter after Ybarra moved out of the family home, he did not know why he did not produce the letter, and he did not produce the letter earlier because he was confident a jury of 12 people would believe him that Ybarra fired him before the statute of limitations ran. In addition to the December 2, 1999, letter, Swanson identified an exhibit that he asserted established that Ybarra and Barger had a meeting on December 8, 1999. The exhibit consisted of a business card and a receipt held together by a paper clip. Later, Swanson explained that he received the items from Christine Baeza, Ybarra's estranged daughter. Swanson asserted that because a receipt dated December 8, 1999, was clipped to Barger's business card, that Ybarra and Barger had met. Ultimately, Swanson did not introduce at trial the December 2 letter or the business card clipped together with the receipt. Following the trial on Ybarra's professional malpractice claim against Swanson, the jury issued a special verdict form. The jury found Ybarra to be 45 percent at fault and Swanson to be 55 percent at fault for negligently failing to obtain service of process before the expiration of the statute of limitations. In answering another special question, the jury found that Ybarra terminated Swanson's representation before the statute of limitations expired. Further, the jury found Lopez 100 percent and Schultz 0 percent at fault for the car accident. The special verdict form instructed the jury that if it found Schultz to be 0% at fault, it did not need to consider any additional issues. About 6 months later, on December 29, 2004, Ybarra filed a complaint against Swanson with the Disciplinary Administrator's office. In February 2005, the Disciplinary Administrator wrote to Swanson and directed him to file a written response to the complaint within 20 days. He failed to do so within that time period. On March 9, 2005, however, Swanson wrote to Glenn Kerbs, the Chairman of the Southwest Kansas Bar Association's Ethics and Grievance Committee, and informed him that the matters between Ybarra and himself had been concluded in his favor following a jury trial. The hearing panel found that Swanson violated the following rules in connection with his representation of Ybarra: KRPC 1.1 for failing to obtain timely service of process on the defendants in Ybarra's personal injury case; KRPC 1.3 for failing to properly prosecute Ybarra's personal injury case and for failing to timely obtain service of process on the defendants; KRPC 1.5 for failing to have a written contingent fee contract with Ybarra; KRPC 1.16(a)(3) for failing to properly withdraw once Swanson's services were terminated by Ybarra and failing to properly protect Ybarra's interests once the representation was terminated; KRPC 3.2 for failing to expedite Ybarra's litigation; KRPC 4.1 for knowingly and intentionally asserting that Ybarra terminated the representation on December 2, 1999, when Ybarra did not terminate Swanson's representation until May 24, 2000; and KRPC 8.4(c) for testifying at the disciplinary hearing that he received a December 1999 letter from Ybarra and testifying that Ybarra terminated the representation in December 1999.