Opinion ID: 1971625
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Lost Records

Text: Mr. Cloud was a sole practitioner for most of his career; his wife, Carol Cloud, served as his secretary. Her responsibilities included the handling of the office's books and records. However, when Mrs. Cloud testified before the hearing committee, she could not recall having prepared any settlement documents in the Dean case. Mrs. Cloud also testified that although she knew of the existence of the Escrow Account, her husband kept track of the money in that account in a separate ledger book. Sometime in 1996 or 1997 (the date is not clear from the record), Mr. Cloud moved his office. In the course of the move, some boxes were inadvertently left behind and were never recovered. Mr. Cloud surmised that the boxes and their contents had been thrown away by either the landlord or the cleaning staff. Included among the lost materials was the ledger book. Because Mr. Cloud never catalogued the office's contents before moving, there was no way of determining which files were lost or destroyed. After the move, Mr. Cloud made no attempt to reconstruct the files associated with the Dean case because he considered it closed and because he already knew (or thought he knew) how much he owed Kemper.