Opinion ID: 2284393
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: separate opinion of members cohen, keep, kaiser and donnenfeld as to recommended sanction

Text: In its Buckley decision 535 A.2d 863 (D.C.1987), the Court reaffirmed its previous statement in In re Hines, 482 A.2d 378 (D.C.1984), that disbarment will ordinarily be the sanction in misappropriation cases. However, the Court went to pains to reiterate that in the wake of Hines there is no per se rule regarding disbarment. The Members joining in this separate opinion feel that their colleagues, in urging disbarment, are applying Buckley in a per se manner and ignoring its instruction that we are to consider extenuating or aggravating circumstances before imposing sanction in misappropriation cases. We feel that a fair consideration of the mitigating factors of the present case justifies a suspension of a year and a day, rather than disbarment. A suspension of a year and a day is justified, first, when measured by the general criteria for imposing discipline on lawyers, as articulated in In re Reback and Parsons, 513 A.2d 226 (D.C.1986) (en banc) . The Court there noted that maintenance of the integrity of the profession, protection of the public and the courts, and deterrence were the principal factors to be considered in imposing discipline. Id. at 231. Mitigating and aggravating circumstances surrounding the misconduct, and the attorney's previous disciplinary record are also factors to be considered. Id. Applying these criteria to this case, there is little question that funds of a client (or their legal equivalent) [1] were taken without contemporaneous authorization, and an inaccurate accounting as to those funds was presented to the client. These actions persuade us that the Respondent did not conduct himself at the level of integrity expected of members of the Bar, and that he should be required to demonstrate his fitness to practice law before being allowed to resume practice in the future. Because this case involves an attorney's handling of funds of a client, a role which attorneys are frequently called upon to perform and in which the public must have full confidence, protection of the public and deterrence are also disciplinary factors suggesting a lengthy suspension. We see no aggravating circumstances in this case and, in mitigation, note the following: 1. There was no commingling; all of the client's funds were properly deposited in a trust account. 2. The withdrawals were made to pay a small portion of legal fees that were undisputedly owed to Respondent. 3. Several months after the withdrawals were made, the client approved of Respondent's use of some of the trust funds to pay overdue legal fees; based on her supportiveness of Respondent expressed at the hearing, the client would likely have authorized the withdrawals at the time they occurred had she been requested to do so then. 4. The client, the supposed victim of the misappropriation, suffered no harm whatever. In fact, she was completely satisfied with Respondent's services, and did not dispute the fees owed him or the propriety of his withdrawals. 5. The misconduct was limited to a single set of facts concerning a single client. 6. Respondent has practiced law for 22 years without any disciplinary violations. These circumstances persuade us that the extreme remedy of disbarment is inappropriate. We also note in mitigation that the client was not the complainant in this case and, as noted above, expressed her concurrence in Respondent's withdrawals from the trust fund. The complaint was the defendant in the lawsuit that Respondent brought on Mrs. Jackson's behalf, in which suit the Respondent was ultimately successful. The suit resulted in having a promissory note voided, thereby saving Mrs. Jackson a substantial amount of moneyall to the detriment of the complainant. In July of 1985, the complainant complained to Bar Counsel that Respondent issued a worthless check almost three years earlier (September 11, 1982), drawn on his trustee account. The check was made good on October 7, 1982, less than a month after its issuance. In the course of its investigation, in which Respondent cooperated, Bar Counsel found that Respondent had withdrawn funds from the monies he was holding in trust and had applied those funds to overdue legal fees. As of the date of the hearing, Respondent's client continued to owe Respondent legal fees and did not wish to see Respondent injured by reason of his withdrawals from the trust account. Tr. 27-28. Our colleagues on the Board suggest that our reliance on these mitigating factors is only an effort to probe the degree of corruptness of Respondent's intent with respect to the misappropriation. It is not. To fail to consider these factors in recommending a sanction would be tantamount to adopting the mechanistic per se approach that the Court expressly eschewed in Buckley and Hines. We are not parsing degrees of misappropriation; we are, rather, determining how severely this Respondent should be sanctioned for his misconduct. In terms of the consistency of our recommended sanction with other disciplinary cases, we believe that Respondent's misappropriation is more comparable to that involved in In re Cefaratti, M-140-82 (D.C. June 28, 1983), than to the misappropriations in In re Quimby, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 273, 359 F.2d 257 (1966); In re Burka, 423 A.2d 181 (D.C.1980); and In re Burton, 472 A.2d 831 (D.C.1984), in which disbarment was ordered. Cefarrati involved the Respondent's unauthorized use of funds entrusted to him. Cefarrati's former client, a corporation, had provided $15,000 to secure payment of a pension to a former corporate employee. Cefarrati had limited authority to invest the funds. Nevertheless, he withdrew $5,000 from the account, considering the withdrawal a loan and repaying the money with interest. However, there was no documentation supporting the loan and no consent had been obtained from the client for the withdrawal. The Court adopted the Board's recommendation for a year and a day suspension. In cases in which disbarment was ordered for misappropriation, there were circumstances present which distinguish them from this case. In In re Quimby, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 273, 359 F.2d 257 (1966), the attorney misappropriated funds from the trusts of two incompetent war veterans. The attorney had no colorable right to the funds, using them instead to ease financial stresses created when a personal investment became unsound. In In re Burton, 472 A.2d 831 (D.C.1984), two separate disciplinary proceedings, involving repeated misappropriation and deceit, resulted in disbarment. And in In re Burka, 423 A.2d 181 (D.C.1980), an attorney made 15 unauthorized withdrawals from the account of an adult ward, totalling $41,000 and had no explanation whatever for the misappropriation. In re Buckley, supra , is the Court's most recent misappropriation case. The attorney there failed to disburse approximately $5,300 received in settlement of a personal injury claim, and used those funds for personal purposes. Two years later, only after a complaint was filed with Bar Counsel, the attorney made proper distribution of the funds. The Court ordered the attorney disbarred. What distinguishes this case from Buckley and the other disbarment cases is that the Respondent here was owed the money he withdrew from the trust account. In none of the other cases did the attorney have any claim to the misappropriated funds. Here, had the fund withdrawals occurred at the times shown on Respondent's accounting to his client in March 1983, there would have been no misappropriation because the withdrawals (to pay overdue legal fees) would have been authorized by the client. Respondent's misconduct occurred because he took the money first, and got permission later. We do not view this as an insignificant lapse of judgment or inadvertence, but it causes us to pull back from recommending the ultimate sanction of disbarment. In sum, based on the mitigating factors in this caseseen in the light of the cited precedentswe do not feel that this is a situation where the ordinary misappropriation sanction should apply. We feel a suspension for a year and a day will satisfy the public policy objectives of the disciplinary system in a manner consistent with the Court's recent holdings. /s/ Charles R. Donnenfeld/Bec CHARLES R. DONNENFELD June 30, 1988 Ms. KAISER, Ms. KEEP and Mr. COHEN join in this opinion.