Opinion ID: 1614914
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Status and Duties owed by the Public Official Perezes

Text: In order properly to analyze the facts in the record before us, and considering that plaintiff's claims are much delayed assertions against public officials, we feel it important first to emphasize the high degree of trust and confidence placed in public officials by the electorate in this state and nation. We deem it also pertinent to note at the outset, that affirmative as well as negative duties are placed on such public officials, even more especially on those whose public office also imposes a duty which entails legal representation. In 1919, Leander Perez, Sr. was appointed district court judge of the judicial district which included Plaquemines Parish. [6] He was elected District Attorney of the same judicial district in 1924 and served the Parish continuously as its District Attorney until 1960. In 1954, Judge Perez appointed his son, Leander Perez, Jr., to the position of Assistant District Attorney. In 1960, Perez, Jr., was elected District Attorney, succeeding his father. After that election, Perez, Jr. appointed Perez, Sr. to the position of Assistant District Attorney. Perez, Jr. remained the Plaquemines Parish District Attorney until January 1, 1985. In 1961 the Plaquemines Parish Charter for Local Self-Government became effective, and Judge Perez was elected, without opposition, to membership on the new Plaquemines Parish governing body, the Plaquemines Parish Commission Council. Judge Perez served as President of the Council and Commissioner of Public Affairs until 1967, when he was replaced by his son, Chalin, who was elected to that same position that year. Chalin Perez served as Commissioner of Public Affairs from 1967 through 1983. The Plaquemines Parish Charter for Local Self-Government placed responsibility for the administration of all Plaquemines Parish public lands in the hands of the Commissioner of Public Affairs. [7] At all times relevant to this case, 1912 La. Acts No. 125 (codified as amended at La. Rev. Stat. Ann. 16:2 (West 1982 & Supp.1987) and id. 42:261 et seq. (West 1965 & Supp.1987)) named the District Attorney as the sole and exclusive legal advisor to the levee boards, the police jury, and other parish governing authorities within his district. 1912 La. Acts No. 125 expressly prohibited levee boards from using any attorney other than the local District Attorney, unless real necessity to do so existed and such necessity was depicted in a resolution promulgated by a given levee board and approved by the Attorney General and the Governor. The predecessors of the Council, the Grand Prairie and Buras Levee Districts, and the Plaquemines Parish Police Jury, owned and controlled [8] public lands in Plaquemines Parish during Judge Perez's eight successive four year terms as elected District Attorney (1928-1960). Thus, by law, Judge Perez was the statutorily bound ex-officio and regular attorney for each of these public agencies. This statutory requirement for a district attorney's representing these public agencies was not changed in any important particular until 1981, when the Legislature added a subsection D to La. Rev. Stat. Ann. 16:2, to provide in pertinent part: Where a parish has adopted a charter for local self government or other home rule charter and such charter provides for the employment of a parish attorney or a special attorney or counsel, the district attorney shall not be the regular attorney or counsel for such governing authority. (Emphasis added.) The Plaquemines Parish Charter for Local Self-Government did, and does, have a provision that (t)he Parish Council may employ a parish attorney. Thus, after the effective date of the 1981 amendment to La. Rev. Stat. Ann. 16:2, District Attorney Leander Perez, Jr. was no longer by statute the regular attorney for the Plaquemines Parish Commission Council. Accordingly, for more than twenty years following passage of the Plaquemines Home Rule Charter (in 1961) and his becoming district attorney (in 1960), Leander Perez, Jr. was the ex-officio regular attorney or counsel for the Plaquemines Parish Police Jury and its successor, the Plaquemines Parish Commission Council. As such, Leander Perez, Jr. was bound in the same attorney-client relationship with the public agency which controlled parish owned mineral lands as his father had been before him. As duly elected public officials serving their constituencies in Plaquemines Parish, Judge Perez, Leander Perez, Jr., and Chalin Perez were bound to exercise their official functions with the utmost degree of honesty and fidelity. Public officials occupy positions of public trust. Public offices are created for the purpose of effecting the ends for which government has been instituted, which are the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not the profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men. State v. Maloon, 172 Ohio St. 343, 176 N.E.2d 422, 427 (1961); State v. Sowards, 64 Okl.Cr. 430, 82 P.2d 324 (1938). And, of course, we subscribe to the principle that: a public officer owes an undivided duty to the public whom he serves and is not permitted to place himself in a position that will subject him to conflicting duties or cause him to act other than for the best interests of the public. Anderson v. City of Parsons, 209 Kan. 337, 496 P.2d 1333, 1337 (1972). [9] Commenting on the high duty of trust and fidelity owed by public officials, the United States Supreme Court has noted: The larger interests of public justice will not tolerate, under any circumstances, that a public official shall retain any profit or advantage which he may realize through the acquirement of an interest in conflict with his fidelity as an agent. If he takes any gift, gratuity, or benefit in violation of his duty, or acquires any interest adverse to his principal, without a full disclosure, it is a betrayal of his trust and a breach of confidence. United States v. Carter, 217 U.S. 286, 30 S.Ct. 515, 54 L.Ed. 769, 775-776 (1910). In addition to the duties placed upon them as public officials, Judge Perez and Leander Perez, Jr., owed high duties of fidelity and trust because of the attorney-client relationship which existed between the parish district attorney and his statutory clients, the Grand Prairie and Buras Levee Districts, the Plaquemines Parish Police Jury, and the Plaquemines Parish Commission Council. In no other agency relationship is a greater duty of trust imposed than in that involving an attorney's duty to his client. Parkerson v. Borst, 264 F. 761, 765 (5th Cir.1920); Lupo v. Lupo, 475 So.2d 402 (La.App. 1st Cir.1985); Cattle Farms, Inc. v. Abercrombie, 211 So.2d 354 (La.App. 4th Cir.1968). The relationship between an attorney and his client is one, of necessity, of mutual confidence and trust. Lyons v. Hall, 90 So.2d 519, 520 (La.App. 2d Cir.1956). In situations where the attorney's interest is adverse to that of his client, the attorney's duty requires him to disclose his adverse interest. LeBlanc v. Christina, 19 La.App. 397, 140 So. 149, 151 (1932). In Searcy v. Novo, 188 So. 490 (La.App. 2d Cir.1939), the Second Circuit Court of Appeal further clarified the nature of the attorney-client relationship: The law leaves no uncertainty in defining the character of duty which an attorney owes to his client. The relation of attorney and client is more than a contract. It superinduces a trust status of the highest order and devolves upon the attorney the imperative duty of dealing with the client only on the basis of the strictest fidelity and honor.       In advising his client and conducting the latter's affairs, an attorney is bound to exercise that reasonable care and diligence which is usually exercised by lawyers and must possess and employ the ordinary legal knowledge and skill which is common to the members of his profession.... This, however, is not the full extent of a lawyer's duties or obligations to his client; he is, in addition, bound to conduct himself as a fiduciary or trustee occupying the highest position of trust and confidence, so that, in all his relations with his client, it is his duty to exercise and maintain the utmost good faith, honesty, integrity, fairness and fidelity. Id. at 498-499 (citations omitted). In no relationship is the maxim that no man can serve two masters more rigidly enforced than in the attorney-client relationship. Parkerson v. Borst, 264 F. at 765. The relationship between an attorney and his client, or between a public official and his constituency, is also frequently characterized as a fiduciary relationship. The nature of the fiduciary relationship has been described in the following manner: The dominant characteristic of a fiduciary relationship is the confidence reposed by one in the other and [a person] occupying such a relationship can not further his own interests and enjoy the fruits of an advantage taken of such a relationship. He must make a full disclosure of all material facts surrounding the transaction that might affect the decision of his principals. Anderson v. Thacher, 76 Cal.App.2d 50, 172 P.2d 533, 543 (1946). A fiduciary relationship has been further described as one that exists when confidence is reposed on one side and there is resulting superiority and influence on the other. Toombs v. Daniels, 361 N.W.2d 801, 809 (Minn.1985) (citations omitted). The duty imposed on a fiduciary embraces the obligation to render a full and fair disclosure to the beneficiary of all facts which materially affect his rights and interests. Hobbs v. Eichler, 164 Cal. App.3d 174, 210 Cal.Rptr. 387, 403-404 (1985) (quoting Neel v. Magana, Olney, Levy, Cathcart and Gelfand, 6 Cal.3d 176, 98 Cal.Rptr. 837, 491 P.2d 421 (1971)). Relative to the duty of disclosure flowing from the fiduciary relationship, the fiduciary's duty to disclose has been held paramount to the beneficiary's duty to investigate possible conflicts of interest. See E.F. Hutton and Co. v. Brown, 305 F.Supp. 371, 398 (S.D.Tex.1969). In addition to the duties which arose from their fiduciary relationship with the Plaquemines Parish governing agencies, Judge Perez and his son, Leander Perez, Jr., as lawyers, were affected by an inherent attribute of their profession not to represent interests which were in conflict. Brasseaux v. Girouard, 214 So.2d 401 (La. App. 3d Cir.) writ refused, 216 So.2d 307 (La.1968). [10] In 1910, the Louisiana Bar Association (which until 1941 was not an integrated bar) adopted the Canons of Professional Ethics of the American Bar Association. Among the adopted Canons was a Canon 6, concerning Adverse Influences and Conflicting Interests: It is the duty of a lawyer at the time of retainer to disclose to the client all the circumstances of his relations to the parties, and any interest in or connection with the controversy, which might influence the client in the selection of counsel. It is unprofessional to represent conflicting interests, except by express consent of all concerned given after a full disclosure of the facts. The identical canon was incorporated in Article XIV (Professional Ethics) of the Articles of Incorporation of the Louisiana State Bar Association in 1941. Having discussed the legal and ethical standards which govern the relationship between public officials and their constituency and between attorneys and their clients, we turn to the facts in this case, as made evident by the record made up at trial of the exception of prescription.