Opinion ID: 2461515
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: federal and state free speech

Text: In Bates v. State Bar of Arizona, 433 U.S. 350, 383-84, 97 S.Ct. 2691, 2708-09, 53 L.Ed.2d 810 (1977), the Supreme Court held that advertising by attorneys may not be subjected to blanket suppression. However, the Court emphasized the narrowness of its ruling and expressly reserved the issue before us: [W]e also need not resolve the problems associated with in-person solicitation of clientsat the hospital room or the accident site, or in any other situation that breeds undue influenceby attorneys or their agents or runners. Activity of that kind might well pose dangers of overreaching and misrepresentation not encountered in newspaper announcement advertising. Bates, 433 U.S. at 366, 97 S.Ct. at 2700. The Court answered part of the question so reserved in Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn., 436 U.S. 447, 98 S.Ct. 1912, 56 L.Ed.2d 444 (1978), in which it squarely held that the state, or appropriate Bar authorities, constitutionally may discipline a lawyer for soliciting clients in person, for pecuniary gain, under circumstances likely to pose dangers that the State has a right to prevent. Id. 436 U.S. at 449, 98 S.Ct. at 1915. Ohralik is the leading case addressing what is sufficiently misleading in the manner of advertising to permit restraint of an attorney's first amendment free speech rights. In Ohralik, the United States Supreme Court upheld a state's prophylactic rule prohibiting in-person solicitation by an attorney. See id. at 467, 98 S.Ct. at 1924. The Court noted that the manner of in-person solicitation was inherently conducive to overreaching and misconduct. Id. at 464, 98 S.Ct. at 1922. The Court reasoned that in-person solicitation (as opposed to printed advertisement) is still protected but at a lower level of judicial scrutiny of the restrictive legislation. Id. at 457, 98 S.Ct. at 1919. In distinguishing printed advertising from in-person solicitation, the court stated: Unlike a public advertisement, which simply provides information and leaves the recipient free to act upon it or not, in-person solicitation may exert pressure and often demands an immediate response, without providing an opportunity for comparison or reflection. The aim and effect of in-person solicitation may be to provide a one-sided presentation and to encourage speedy and perhaps uninformed decision-making; there is no opportunity for intervention or counter-education by agencies of the Bar, supervisory authorities, or persons close to the solicited individual. Id. In lowering the level of judicial scrutiny over legislation or rules addressing in-person solicitation, the court noted that the immediacy of a particular communication and the imminence of harm are factors that have made certain communications less protected than others. Id. at n. 13. Although Ohralik concerned solitation by the lawyer himself, the Court expressly noted that solicitation by a lawyer's agents or runners would present similar problems. Id. at 464 n. 22, 98 S.Ct. at 1923 n. 22. The concerns articulated in the Court's opinion justified the broad state rule prohibiting solicitation, and the Court specifically held that the absence of explicit proof or findings of harm or injury is immaterial. Id. at 468, 98 S.Ct. at 1925. In our view, this latter quote answers O'Quinn's attempts to distinguish Ohralik on the facts, as well as his reliance on the fact that none of his clients have complained or been harmed. We also believe the Supreme Court has considered and rejected the unscrupulous claims adjuster argument, at least with respect to a lawyer's alleged right to solicit clients. Id. at 459 n. 16, 98 S.Ct. at 1920 n. 16 (we are not unmindful of the problem of the related practice ... of the solicitation of releases of liability by claims agents or adjusters of prospective defendants or their insurers). We, too, reject this argument. But, in so doing, we should not be construed as having approved of unconscionable conduct on the part of insurance adjusters. To the contrary, we condemn such unscrupulous practices. However, unless the adjuster is a lawyer or acts as an agent of a lawyer, the State Bar Disciplinary Rules are inapplicable. This does not mean that an adjuster's conduct cannot and should not be subject to scrutiny or sanctions. At the heart of O'Quinn's constitutional contentions is the notion that the use of runners to solicit prospective clients is somehow deserving of more constitutional protection than the conduct considered in Ohralik. In support of this proffered distinction, O'Quinn recites lengthy passages from Zauderer v. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, 471 U.S. 626, 105 S.Ct. 2265, 85 L.Ed.2d 652 (1985), a case involving a newspaper advertisement. Although Zauderer did place emphasis on the dangers of personal solicitation by a trained attorney, id. at 641-42, 105 S.Ct. at 2276-77, and recognized that in some instances in-person solicitation could be permissible, id. at 638, 105 S.Ct. at 2275, we perceive no retreat from the Court's prior observation that solicitation by a lawyer's agents or runners would present similar problems. Ohralik, 436 U.S. at 464 n. 22, 98 S.Ct. at 1923 n. 22. O'Quinn also relies extensively on Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp. v. Public Service Commission of New York, 447 U.S. 557, 566, 100 S.Ct. 2343, 2351, 65 L.Ed. 2d 341 (1980), as establishing a four-part analysis to determine the constitutional validity of restrictions on commercial speech. We will assume, arguendo, that in-person solicitation by a lawyer's runners is deserving of some first amendment protection. Cf. Ohralik, 436 U.S. at 459, 98 S.Ct. at 1920 (lawyer's procurement of remunerative employment is a subject only marginally affected with First Amendment concerns). We further assume, and Ohralik holds, that the state has a strong and substantial interest in protecting the public from overreaching and other forms of misconduct as well as invasions of the individual's privacy. 436 U.S. at 464, 465, 98 S.Ct. at 1922-23. Assuming further that Central Hudson requires us to determine whether the regulation directly advances the governmental interest asserted, and whether it is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest, 447 U.S. at 566, 100 S.Ct. at 2351, we nevertheless conclude that a ban against in-person solicitation of clients by lawyers or runners is substantially related to legitimate state goals and could not be more narrowly tailored. The Supreme Court in Ohralik was keenly aware of the peculiar problems involved in trying to regulate private, in-person solicitation. 436 U.S. at 466-67 and n. 28, 98 S.Ct. at 1923-24 and n. 28 ([n]o problem is more intractable than that of prescribing and enforcing standards with respect to in-person, private solicitation). We further fail to see how O'Quinn takes any comfort from State Bar Grievance Administrator v. Jaques, 407 Mich. 26, 281 N.W.2d 469 (1979). Although the majority opinion in that case concluded that the discipline imposed against attorney Jaques could not stand after Ohralik, the court expressly noted: There is no claim that the union official [whom Jaques solicited] was in fact nothing more than a `runner' or agent for Jaques. Id. 407 Mich. at 38, 281 N.W.2d at 470. We likewise question O'Quinn's reliance on Shapero v. Kentucky Bar Association, ___ U.S. ___, 108 S.Ct. 1916, 100 L.Ed.2d 475 (1988). That case involved targeted direct mail solicitation and does not implicate the concerns justifying prohibitions against in-person solicitation of business. Moreover, the Court goes so far as to suggest that states may categorically ban in-person solicitation. Id. at ___, 108 S.Ct. at 1921, 100 L.Ed.2d at 483-84. In sum, we hold that the State Bar's prosecution of the disciplinary action under review does not violate any of O'Quinn's free speech rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution. But, that does not dispose of O'Quinn's argument that his free speech rights under the Texas Constitution have been violated. The Texas Bill of Rights, Tex. Const. art. I, § 8, states in respect to free speech: Every person shall be at liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege; and no law shall ever be passed curtailing the liberty of speech or of the press. We are of course free to read [our] own constitution more broadly than [the Supreme] Court reads the Federal Constitution, or to reject the mode of analysis used by [the Supreme] Court in favor of a different analysis of its corresponding constitutional guarantee. City of Mesquite v. Aladdin's Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283, 293, 102 S.Ct. 1070, 1077, 71 L.Ed.2d 152 (1982). This court has determined on several occasions that the Texas Bill of Rights affords protection beyond that provided by the United States Constitution. See, e.g., LeCroy v. Hanlon, 713 S.W.2d 335, 338 (Tex. 1986). One commentator has characterized Texas' free speech right as being broader than its federal equivalent, saying: [V]arious states, like Texas, have broader free speech and assembly protections, which are often positively phrased as affirmative grants of rights rather than the simple restriction on government power observed in the first amendment to the federal constitution. These more expansive guarantees, which are within a state's sovereign right as recognized by the federal Supreme Court, offer a significant distinction upon which courts rely to construe their state constitutions. J. Harrington, The Texas Bill of Rights 40 (1987). Irrespective of whether the guarantee is in fact broader, it is quite obvious that the Texas Constitution's affirmative grant of free speech is more broadly worded than the first amendment's proscription of Congress from abridging freedom of speech. It is equally obvious that the framers of the first Texas Constitution were quite aware of the difference. The original draft of section 4 of the Declaration of Rights of the 1836 Constitution for the Republic of Texas provided: No law shall ever be passed to curtail the liberty of speech or the press. 1 Gammel, Laws of Texas 868 (1898). But, by the time of its adoption the Fourth Declaration of Rights of the Texas Constitution of 1836 stated: Every citizen shall be at liberty to speak, write, or publish his opinions on any subject, being responsible for the abuse of that privilege. We need not decide at this time whether Texas' guarantee of free speech affords greater protection than its corresponding federal right, because neither analysis would permit the engagement of runners to solicit personally legal business. Even though in this case there may be no client complaint, in-person solicitation is fraught with the possibility of abuse, whether it be by one roaming the wards and rooms in an orthopedic wing of a hospital or by one imposing upon a widow during her time of grief. It is those abuses and others that the disciplinary rules are designed to prevent. We have reviewed the Oregon cases cited by O'Quinn and find them unpersuasive. Although the free speech provision in the Oregon Constitution has language similar to its Texas counterpart, Oregon's highest court has held that obscenity, under any definition, is protected by the Oregon Constitution. State v. Henry, 302 Or. 510, 525, 732 P.2d 9, 17 (1987). As explained by the Supreme Court of Oregon, [i]n this state any person can write, print, read, say, show or sell anything to a consenting adult even though that expression may be generally or universally considered `obscene.' Id. at 525, 782 P.2d at 18. We question whether a prohibition against disseminating obscene materials implicates a person's liberty to speak, write or publish his opinions within the meaning of Tex. Const. art. I, § 8, and we decline to follow in this context the Oregon decisions relied upon by O'Quinn. See also Ackerley Communications, Inc. v. Multnomah County, 72 Or.App. 617, 696 P.2d 1140 (1985), petition withdrawn, 303 Or. 165, 734 P.2d 885 (1987). Again, a review of the allegations shows that O'Quinn is not being prosecuted for exercising any free speech right. Instead, the essential allegation is that he paid non-lawyers to solicit remunerative employment for himself. We further note that a person who, with intent to obtain a benefit for himself ... procures another to solicit for him employment to prosecute a claim is subject to criminal prosecution for barratry under Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 38.12(a)(4) (Vernon 1974). The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has already rejected the contention that the barratry statute is unconstitutional because it imposes a limitation on the right of free speech. Barbee v. State, 432 S.W.2d 78, 85 (Tex. Crim.App.1968), cert. denied, 395 U.S. 924, 89 S.Ct. 1779, 23 L.Ed.2d 241 (1969). We decline to hold that the right of free speech under the Texas Constitution guarantees a lawyer the right to solicit business for pecuniary gain under the circumstances alleged in the State Bar's disciplinary petition. We do hold that prosecution of the State Bar's disciplinary action violates none of O'Quinn's rights under Tex. Const. art. I, § 8.