Opinion ID: 2602451
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: C.R.C.P. 251.18(f)(4): DISCOVERY IN DISCIPLINARY PROCEEDINGS

Text: Although discovery in disciplinary proceedings is governed by C.R.C.P. 251.18 rather than C.R.C.P. 16 and 26, see C.R.C.P. 251.18(f)(4)(A), many of the discovery procedures of the civil rules are expressly incorporated by Rule 251.18. Much of their general, interpretative case law will therefore be equally applicable in the disciplinary context. The scope of discovery under the Colorado Rules of Civil Procedure, which we have characterized as very broad, Williams v. District Court, 866 P.2d 908, 911 (Colo.1993); Kerwin v. District Court, 649 P.2d 1086, 1088 (Colo.1982), has included any matter relevant to the claim or defense of any part that is not privileged. C.R.C.P. 26(b)(1). [4] Even though these rules permit broad discovery, it is not unlimited. See Leidholt v. District Court, 619 P.2d 768, 770 (Colo.1980). The discovery process can be abused by disproportionate and inappropriate requests that increase the cost of litigation, harass an opponent, or tend to delay a fair and just determination of the legal issues. Id. Discovery must also be limited to avoid unnecessarily infringing upon privacy and confidentiality. Corbetta v. Albertson's, Inc., 975 P.2d 718, 720 (Colo.1999). While the information sought in discovery need not be admissible at trial, it must at least be reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Martinelli v. District Court, 199 Colo. 163, 168, 612 P.2d 1083, 1087 (1980). Because a balance must be struck between the need for information and these countervailing considerations, a motion to compel discovery is generally committed to the discretion of the trial court, and its determination will be upheld on appeal absent a clear abuse of discretion. Williams, 866 P.2d at 911; Gagnon v. District Court, 632 P.2d 567, 569 (Colo.1981); see also Bond v. District Court, 682 P.2d 33, 40 (Colo.1984); In re Marriage of Mann, 655 P.2d 814, 816 (Colo.1982). Where, however, it is clear that the trial court misconceives the materiality of certain matters to the proceeding before it, its assessment of the relevance of information tending to prove those matters or the likelihood that such information will lead to the discovery of relevant evidence is also necessarily affected.
The respondent explained that he sought discovery of the past practices of the reporting attorney and his office in connection with the appointment of arbitrators, as relevant to the standard of care applicable to the profession in choosing arbitrators and making disclosures. The Presiding Disciplinary Judge considered discovery relative to such a standard of care appropriate, but only to the extent that it might relate to a mitigating factor. Relying on language from People v. Reichman, 819 P.2d 1035 (Colo.1991), the disciplinary judge found that the conduct of other lawyers could be taken into account as mitigation in sanctioning an attorney for misconduct. In response to objections that the reporting attorney had nevertheless not been retained or endorsed as an expert witness, the PDJ made clear that he did not consider the standard of care or practice to be a matter requiring expert opinion but that the defendant or any other lawyer in the state with knowledge of the standard of practice would be subject to subpoena on that issue. This court has consistently recognized the ABA Standards for Imposing Lawyer Sanctions (1991 & Supp.1992) as the guiding authority for selecting the appropriate sanction to impose for lawyer misconduct. In the Matter of Pautler, 47 P.3d 1175, 1183 (Colo. 2002); In the Matter of Attorney C., 47 P.3d 1167, 1173 (Colo.2002); In re Myers, 981 P.2d 143, 144 (Colo.1999); In re Quiat, 979 P.2d 1029, 1042 (Colo.1999); People v. Susman, 787 P.2d 1119, 1120 (Colo.1990). The purpose behind the creation of these Standards was to enhance the consistency of sanctions imposed in attorney disciplinary proceedings. See ABA Standards, Preface 01:801-01:803. The Standards describe a range of available sanctions and require, in choosing the appropriate one, consideration of the duty that was violated, the lawyer's mental state, the actual or potential injury caused by the lawyer's misconduct, and the existence of various aggravating or mitigating factors. ABA Standards 3.0. The mitigating circumstances that may justify a reduction in the degree of discipline to be imposed, are enumerated by the Standards as: (a) absence of a prior disciplinary record; (b) absence of a dishonest or selfish motive; (c) personal or emotional problems; (d) timely good faith effort to make restitution or to rectify consequences of misconduct; (e) full and free disclosure to disciplinary board or cooperative attitude toward proceedings; (f) inexperience in the practice of law; (g) character or reputation; (h) physical disability; (i) mental disability or chemical dependency including alcohol or drug abuse when; (1) there is medical evidence that the respondent is affected by a chemical dependency or mental disability; (2) the chemical dependency or mental disability caused the misconduct; (3) the respondent's recovery from the chemical dependency or mental disability is demonstrated by a meaningful and sustained period of successful rehabilitation; and (4) the recovery arrested the misconduct and recurrence of that misconduct is unlikely. (j) delay in disciplinary proceedings; (k) imposition of other penalties or sanctions; ( l ) remorse; (m) remoteness of prior offenses. ABA Standards 9.32. Even taking the PDJ's reference to mitigation broadly, as including any consideration that might affect the sanction for a violation, neither the ABA Standards nor the prior holdings of this court suggest that the conduct of other attorneys or their personal interpretations of the rules of conduct are themselves relevant. Expert testimony concerning practice in a particular area of the law might be admissible under some circumstances, to assist the board with such things as the practical implications of ethical rules, the difficulty of their application, or even the way they are commonly understood among practitioners, but the conduct of other individual attorneys in similar circumstances will rarely if ever be relevant to establishing either the occurrence of a violation or the propriety of a sanction. The fact that other particular attorneys may have engaged in the same practice as the respondent, even if those attorneys are numerous, amounts to neither justification nor mitigation for violation of an ethical standard. Both the mental state and motives of the respondent himself are clearly material to the propriety of a sanction. See ABA Standards 3.0 and 9.32(b). With regard to the imposition of sanctions, however, the mental state of the respondent refers to his intent or awareness with respect to either his conduct or a result of his conduct. See ABA Standards definitions. It does not refer to his awareness or construction of a particular ethical proscription or his intent to violate it. Cf. § 18-1-504(2), C.R.S. (2001) (A person is not relieved of criminal liability for conduct because he engages in that conduct under a mistaken belief that it does not, as a matter of law, constitute an offense.). Similarly, the absence of a dishonest or selfish motive, which is included among the enumerated mitigating factors of the ABA Standards for Imposing Sanctions, refers to the lawyer's motive for his conduct, without regard to any awareness on his part whether that conduct is specifically proscribed as unethical. While not necessarily irrelevant, a respondent's awareness that his conduct will violate an ethical proscription is not itself material. By contrast, the fact that an attorney is acting in conformity with a commonly-accepted practice may very well be probative of his lack of improper motive or intent. Conforming to an accepted practice, either from a belief in its validity because of its general acceptance or merely as a matter of routine, although not dispositive, provides some explanation for the conduct apart from dishonesty or selfishness. But the question whether a practice is standard or accepted in the professional community is a matter of specialized knowledge or opinion. It is not rationally based on the perceptions of witnesses without specialized training or knowledge but arises only from particular experience with and knowledge of the legal community and area of practice. See CRE 701-702. Attempting to establish that a practice is commonly accepted by producing specific examples of conduct is too tenuous to justify the discovery of the prior behavior or practices of other particular attorneys. Whether, or under what circumstances, an unconsenting witness might actually be forced to testify as an expert at trial [5] need not be resolved here. It seems clear from the record that the reporting attorney in this case was never identified or retained as an expert witness by any party and was not subject to discovery as an expert witness by stipulation or order of the court, in the absence of which he should not have been subject to discovery as an expert witness. See C.R.C.P. 251.18(f)(4)(C)(iii); C.R.C.P. 26(b)(4)(A). In any event, however, it is difficult to envision circumstances in which a reporting attorney would not be entitled to protection from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, or undue expense, see C.R.C.P. 26(c), if not actually infringement on privilege or confidentiality, see Corbetta, 975 P.2d at 720, as a result of a demand by the respondent in a disciplinary proceeding for materials concerning his awareness of legal standards in the community. The need is far too slight and the potential for abuse far too great to permit discovery of the files or opinions of a reporting attorney in a disciplinary proceeding under the guise of seeking mitigating evidence of common practices. Cf. In the Matter of Smith, 989 P.2d at 172 (emphasizing the need to protect those reporting attorney misconduct from abusive process in the form of retaliatory lawsuits). And we have not before suggested otherwise. In People v. Reichman, 819 P.2d at 1039, where the respondent's motives and the erroneous belief of other public prosecutors that the respondent's conduct was ethical were referred to as mitigating factors, the decision of this court did not approve the admissibility of specific evidence of similar misconduct by other prosecutors or lay opinion concerning standards of practice, and it did not involve a question of discovery at all. More importantly, however, the erroneous belief of other public prosecutors (apparently as evidenced by published case law, id. at 1036), to which the decision referred, was not an erroneous construction of the proscription against dishonesty, fraud, deceit, and misrepresentation. It was a misconception about the effect of a competing duty to prosecute crime. The prominence of a belief that such a competing public duty would excuse or justify misrepresentation, although that belief turned out to be erroneous, was clearly relevant as an explanation for the respondent's sanctionable conduct, apart from any dishonest or selfish motive. Our holding in Reichman never suggested that a less serious sanction might be appropriate merely because other prosecutors believed the conduct to be ethical or because they would have done the same thing themselves. Permitting examination of the reporting attorney himself, as well as his files, for indications of his own prior conduct or his opinions about ethical or legal obligations concerning arbitral disclosures appears to have been based on a misunderstanding of their materiality and amounted to an abuse of discretion.
The respondent also asserted, and the disciplinary judge agreed, that a number of the documents were potentially relevant to the limitations period referred to in C.R.C.P. 251.32(i). Paragraph (i) is entitled, Statute of Limitations, and provides that a request for investigation against an attorney shall be filed within five years of the time that the complaining witness discovers or reasonably should have discovered the misconduct. Although there was little discussion of the rule at the hearing before the PDJ (or in the briefs before this court), there appeared to be a general acceptance by all involved that the rule would bar the disciplinary proceeding unless the reporting attorney requested the investigation within five years of his discovery of the conduct forming the basis for at least some of the charges. The PDJ's order therefore permitted examination of the reporting attorney and documents for information relevant to the question when the reporting attorney learned of the conduct forming the basis of the charges. Despite Rule 251.32(i)'s title, its actual text, which fails to bar the filing of a complaint or the administration of discipline and conditions its bar to a request for investigation upon the knowledge or negligence of a complaining witness, leaves the meaning of the rule far from clear. Whatever its precise nature and scope, however, the time bar created by the rule is expressly excused for misconduct alleging fraud, conversion, or conviction of a serious crime, or for an offense the discovery of which was prevented by concealment by the attorney. Id. By expressing these exemptions in broad, generic terms  allegations of fraud, conversion, serious crime, or conduct involving concealment  the rule restricts the effect of any intended time bar to less serious kinds of misconduct. Particularly, the term fraud, when not limited by context or express definition, has a generic meaning that includes virtually any kind of deception or unfair way of inducing another to surrender rights or property. See Nichoalds v. McGlothlin, 330 F.2d 454, 457 (10th Cir.1964); see generally Black's Law Dictionary 660 (6th ed. 1990)(A generic term, embracing all multifarious means which human ingenuity can devise, and which are resorted to by one individual to get advantage over another by false suggestions or by suppression of truth, and includes all surprise, trick, cunning, dissembling, and any unfair way by which another is cheated.). While the conduct involving dishonesty, deceit, or misrepresentation that is designated misconduct in RPC 8.4(c) might be considered broader than fraud in some contexts, the conduct of denying or failing to disclose a financial, business, or professional relationship in connection with appointment as an insurance arbitrator, which is the misconduct charged in this case, falls clearly within the meaning of fraud as that term is used in Rule 251.32(i). Therefore, neither the timing of the charged misconduct's commission nor the timing of its discovery could bar the disciplinary proceeding in this case.