Opinion ID: 2361115
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: and F. William Ahilable and Sammy Tachie

Text: In these two instances, the Respondent's handling of the assignments and authorizations was similar and more problematic. In both of these instances, the MHCE was asserting claims in excess of $3,000.00. According to the Respondent in each instance, he discussed these claims with the clients at the time of settlement. In both instances, the clients expressed surprise at the size of the claim. Each client separately upon learning of the amount of the claim told the Respondent that they would speak to Mr. Wilson, the representative from MHCE and get back to the Respondent. Thereafter the clients informed the Respondent that Mr. Wilson had agreed to accept $1,000.00 in each of their cases as full settlement of the claim. Accordingly, in both cases, the Respondent withheld $1,000.00 for payment of the claims asserted by MHCE. Thereafter, he maintained that he had contacted MHCE and advised them that he was forwarding to them, pursuant to Mr. Wilson's agreement with the Respondent's client, the sum of $1,000.00 in both cases. MHCE responded that they would have to talk to Mr. Wilson and ultimately that the $1,000.00 was unacceptable. In both cases, the Respondent testified that he subsequently returned the money to the clients and informed the clients that he [sic] would then have to take care of these claims. The problem with the Respondent's explanation is there is little or no documentary evidence to support the Respondent's explanation. There was a settlement sheet for the Ahilable case ... which does not reflect that at the time of the settlement in January of 1992, $1,000.00 was withheld for payment to MHCE. There is no settlement sheet for the case of Sammy Tachie to provide similar corroboration. The Ahilable document does seem to provide some support for the Respondent's testimony that he believed MHCE had agreed to accept $1,000.00 and withheld that amount. However, the Court is troubled by the fact that the Respondent could offer no canceled checks evidencing the subsequent payment if $1,000.00 to each of the clients after learning that MHCE would not accept those monies in satisfaction of their claims. While the absence of such evidence causes the Court concern, in light of the absence of any other evidence to indicate that the Respondent at any time took a client's monies for his own use, as well as the character testimony presented by and on behalf of the Respondent, as well as the overwhelming conceded evidence with respect to the Respondent's total ineptness concerning the handling of the business aspects of his practice, the Court cannot say by clear and convincing evidence that the Respondent, after initially withholding the $1,000.00 for payment to MHCE, thereafter failed to return the monies to the clients.