Opinion ID: 1185890
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Owre Case

Text: In January, 1978, the accused was consulted by Mrs. Ann Owre, whose husband had filed a complaint seeking dissolution of the marriage. Mrs. Owre believed that the accused was working on the case. She testified that one day she read in the paper that she was divorced. The husband's attorney had taken a default decree, apparently without informing Mr. Rudie. Rudie assured Mrs. Owre that the default could be set aside, but after further discussion they decided to accept the property distribution made in the decree. This involved obtaining the husband's signature to certain title documents which Mrs. Owre gave the accused for that purpose. After several months the accused had not completed that transaction, and Mrs. Owre left a note at his office asking him to turn the file over to another attorney. This had not yet been done at the time of the disciplinary hearing. The Bar's tenth cause of complaint charged the accused with neglecting a legal matter entrusted to him. DR 6-101(A)(3). The accused did not contradict the essential facts, but he explained the latter phases of the delay by the fact that in September, 1978, his parents were killed in an airplane crash, leaving him too preoccupied with family affairs and emotionally incapacitated to function effectively in his practice. The trial board made no statement whatever concerning the tenth cause of complaint. The Disciplinary Review Board stated that it viewed the failure to respond to Mrs. Owre as a serious matter despite the mitigating circumstances. Again, we agree with the Disciplinary Review Board. See In re Geurts, 290 Or. 248, 620 P.2d 1373 (1980); In re English, 290 Or. 113, 618 P.2d 1275 (1980); In re Kraus, 289 Or. 661, 616 P.2d 1173 (1980); In re Holm, 285 Or. 189, 590 P.2d 233 (1979); In re Kneeland, 281 Or. 317, 574 P.2d 324 (1978).