Opinion ID: 1670354
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Did the trial court err in denying Mr. Welch's motion to dismiss?

Text: On July 9, 2004, Mr. Welch's counsel filed a Motion to Dismiss with the trial court asserting that the disciplinary charges against Mr. Welch had been settled in June 1999. Disciplinary Counsel for the Board orally responded to this motion on the morning of the trial. According to Disciplinary Counsel, Mr. Welch had submitted a settlement offer to a hearing committee in June 1999 on a prior petition for discipline. The Board declined to accept Mr. Welch's conditional guilty plea. The Board then filed a non-suit of that petition for discipline and then re-filed the petition with a different hearing committee. This latter petition is the subject of the current appeal. The trial court denied Mr. Welch's motion to dismiss on the ground that the Board had rejected the proposed conditional guilty plea and that the prior petition for discipline had been non-suited. Rule 9, section 6.1 of the Rules of the Supreme Court of the State of Tennessee provides: An attorney against whom formal charges have been served may at any stage of the proceedings before the Board, hearing committee or trial court, thereafter tender a conditional guilty plea to the petition or to a particular count thereof in exchange for a stated form of punishment. Such a tendered plea shall be submitted to the Disciplinary Counsel and approved or rejected by the Board upon recommendation of the hearing committee if the matter has been assigned for hearing, or shall be approved or rejected by the trial court if a petition for certiorari has been filed; subject, however, in either even, to final approval or rejection by this Court if the stated form of punishment includes disbarment, suspension or public reprimand. (Emphasis added.) Mr. Welch claims that Rule 9, section 6.1 does not apply to him because he never tendered a conditional guilty plea but rather, the matter was simply settled as other cases are each and every day. Mr. Welch then claims that the agreement was unilaterally ignored after having been accepted by the hearing committee. There is no provision contemplated under the disciplinary rules for a settlement other than for the conditional guilty plea set out in section 6.1. What Mr. Welch attempts to label as an ordinary settlement was in fact a conditional guilty plea, which must be approved by the Board in order for it to dispose of the charges against him. [4] In this case, the agreement was not approved, so the matter was never settled. As such, the trial court did not err in denying Mr. Welch's motion to dismiss.