Opinion ID: 2204353
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: Respondent Files a RICO Lawsuit, 03-M-1183

Text: On June 27, 2003, the same day Respondent withdrew her COCCA claims in state court, she filed a federal RICO suit, 03-M-1183, against the same defendants alleging many of the same claims she had alleged in state court. Respondent decided to file her case in federal court because she thought it would be a better forum than the state court in Summit County where her clients had lost in 99CV277. [15] Even though six weeks had past since Respondent filed her COCCA claims, she still had not taken any action to properly plead what she described as a slapdash COCCA complaint. Respondent's RICO complaint tracked, nearly verbatim, the allegations she made in the COCCA case she had dismissed earlier the same day. [16] Like the COCCA suit she had filed in state court, Respondent did not give the defendants notice of its filing nor did she serve them with the complaint. Although Respondent is an experienced litigator, she had never filed a RICO suit in the past. Respondent filed a lis pendens, which included 6000 acres of land, much of it owned by Elk Dance. While Respondent maintained a research folder that contained reported cases on the RICO statute, she did not update these cases before filing the RICO suit and clearly did not even review the cases she had already collected in her research folder. A review of the pleadings shows Respondent failed to allege with specificity the allegations of fraud as required by F.R.C.P. 9(b). [17] At the time she filed 03-M-1183 Respondent knew that Judge Lass had authorized the SCR HOA to enter into contracts and conduct business on behalf of the SCR HOA. [18] Further, Respondent knew that Judge Lass denied her motion to vacate, which alleged that the SCR HOA and others had fraudulently obtained a declaratory judgment against her clients. [19] Yet she urged Judge Matsch to allow her to continue litigating her RICO complaint, one in which she alleged that the SCR HOA board members were not duly elected and engaged in fraud against her clients in obtaining a declaratory judgment in state court. Indeed, Judge Lass had ruled that the SCR HOA was duly authorized to act on behalf of the SCR HOA's members, including Respondent's clients. He also ruled Respondent failed to prove that the SCR HOA committed a fraud upon the court when the acting directors obtained a declaratory judgment in their favor. The Hearing Board finds Respondent's persistence in litigating these resolved matters in federal court misguided. The Hearing Board further finds Respondent's claim that she was acting zealous in protecting and representing her clients, a hollow assertion based upon the record leading up to this filing. Furthermore, the Hearing Board finds that neither the rules of procedure nor the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct justify Respondent's conduct as she argues. While the rules of procedure allow an amendment after filing a complaint, this rule, standing alone, does not justify Respondent's conduct in filing a RICO claim without addressing legal and factual issues that would legally and factually preclude filing such a claim. F.R.C.P. 1 states, [the federal civil rules] should be construed and administered to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action and proceeding. Respondent's conduct was entirely inconsistent with these guiding procedural principles. Finally, the Preamble to the Colorado Rules of Professional Conduct Scope states, a lawyer, as a member of the legal profession, is a representative of clients, an officer of the legal system, and a public citizen having special responsibility for the quality of justice. To be sure, Respondent represented her clients, but in doing so, she discounted her responsibilities as an officer of the court. Those responsibilities fundamentally call upon a lawyer to respect the rule of law. Here the issues Respondent raised in her RICO claim had been resolved yet Respondent persisted in using and abusing the legal process in an apparent effort to undo a final order her clients would not honor. In her federal complaint alleging RICO violations, Respondent prayed for declaratory relief, including the removal of the acting directors of the SCR HOA and a finding that her clients owned water rights in the SCR development. Respondent knew that Judge Lass had ruled to the contrary on both of these issues in 99CV277 and that his order was a final judgment. [20] Furthermore, when questioned in these proceedings about the Rooker-Feldman doctrine applicable in federal courts, Respondent did not know whether it applied to her filing in 03-M-1183. [21] When Respondent filed the RICO suit against the SCR HOA, its lawyers, and Elk Dance, she did not serve them with the complaint. Nevertheless, one of the named defendants in Respondent's RICO suit, Victor Boog, a lawyer who represented the SCR HOA, discovered a reference to the RICO filing when he reviewed Respondent's pleadings in a related water court case. Respondent testified that she had intended to amend her RICO complaint as provided in F.R.C.P. 15. However, as discussed below, that does not excuse her filing of the improper complaint in the first place.