Opinion ID: 1465973
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Challenged Payment

Text: 1. Respondent is a member of the District of Columbia Bar. He was admitted on November 3, 1995, and assigned Bar Registration No. 448392, at the age of 60, following service in the U.S. Marine Corps and a career in real estate and development. As of the date of the Committee's hearing, Respondent had practiced in the area of conservatorship law for about five years and had handled approximately 50 cases. 2. On April 15, 2002, the Probate Court appointed Respondent successor conservator for Ms. Fannie B. Thomas. Ms. Thomas, who was then 92 years old, resided at Northwest Health Care Center, a nursing home located at 3333 Wisconsin Avenue, N.W., and had done so since February 1999. 3. On January 21, 2003, acting as conservator, Respondent opened a checking account for the ward's estate at Adams National Bank, Washington, D.C., entitled Estate of Fannie B. Thomas, account number XXXXXXXX (Estate Account). 4. On March 13, 2003, Beverly Health and Rehabilitation Services, Inc., which does business as Northwest Health Care Center, filed a claim against the assets of the Thomas Estate in the conservatorship proceedings. The claim sought $50,680.29 for health care and residential services furnished Ms. Thomas at Northwest since September 2000. 5. Beverly Health was represented by Gloria Johnson, who testified at the hearing on behalf of Respondent. See FF 23. [1] 6. On May 22, 2003, Respondent filed with the Probate Court his first annual accounting for the Thomas Estate, which covered the period of April 15, 2002, through April 15, 2003. It showed that as of April 15, 2003, the balance in the Estate Account was $11,662.82. 7. On June 17, 2003, Respondent filed with the Probate Court a Verified Petition for Compensation, seeking fees of $3,016.66 for 15 hours and five minutes of services rendered as conservator from May 2, 2002, through March 5, 2003, all at a rate of $200 per hour. 8. Respondent's petition was filed pursuant to Probate Court Rule 308. Rule 308(a) expressly entitles a conservator to reasonable compensation for services rendered. To be paid from a ward's assets, however, compensation must be approved by Order of the Court before being paid. . . (emphasis added). [2] 9. Probate Rule 308 implements D.C.Code § 21-2060(a) (2000), which provides: [a]s approved by order of the court, any. . . attorney . . . [or] conservator . . . is entitled to compensation for services rendered . . . in connection with a guardianship or protective arrangement. Any . . . conservator is entitled to reimbursement for room, board, and clothing personally provided to the ward from the estate of the ward, but only as approved by order of the court. Compensation shall be paid from the estate of the ward . . . . (emphasis added). 10. On July 28, 2003, using Estate Account check 1013, Respondent wrote a check to himself in the amount of $2,500, even though his fee petition had not yet been approved. At a hearing before Judge Burgess in the Probate Court on February 15, 2005, Respondent told the Court that he did so because of the nursing home's claim, which he feared would exhaust the Estate's assets, leaving no funds from which to pay his fee. (What I was afraid of, there would be no funds left to pay my fees.) 11. In fact, when Respondent wrote check 1013 to himself, the Probate Court had not issued an order granting his fee petition or otherwise satisfying the requirement of Rule 308. Both at the hearing before the Probate Court and in his Reply to Specification of Charges, Respondent claimed that before writing check 1013 (the $2,500 check), a Probate Court auditor had told him that an order approving the payment had been signed by a judge and docketed. Judge Burgess clearly was skeptical of this claim and said as much. Before the Hearing Committee, however, Respondent offered no evidence to support that claim. He has never identified the auditor or another court employee who might have made the statement and, as Bar Counsel has pointed out, has presented somewhat different versions of this alleged conversation. 12. As an experienced Probate Court practitioner, Respondent knew that without a court order approving the $2,500 withdrawal in advance, he could not lawfully make that payment to himself. His petition for compensation even cited Probate Rule 308. Further, Respondent admitted that he has always known the correct processes to secure fees for his legal services. [3] 13. Although an order approving a fee petition would ordinarily be mailed to counsel within one week of signature, Respondent did not receive the order approving his fee petition until early September 2003, more than one month after paying his fees from estate assets. Nothing in the record indicates that he took any action when the order failed to arrive promptly following his alleged conversation with the probate auditor. There is no evidence that he inquired of the court or restored the funds to the Estate. 14. On August 28, 2003, on the recommendation of the Office of the Register of Wills, Judge Christian in the Probate Division issued an order awarding Respondent $2,983.40 for the services described in his fee petition. At the time, she had no reason to know that Respondent had already paid himself $2,500 of the total sought by his petition. The court awarded Respondent $33.26 less than the amount sought in the petition because the court had noted a small calculation error that overstated by ten minutes the amount of time Respondent had devoted to the case. In all other respects, the petition was approved. 15. On September 10, 2003, Respondent paid himself from the Estate Account an additional $483.40, bringing his total payment to the sum approved by the Probate Court.