Opinion ID: 31514
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Motion to Bar

Text: 37 Appellees, the City, Bolton, Benavides, and Daniels assert a single-issue cross-appeal. Appellees contest the district court's ruling on Jackson's and Taylor's motion to bar certain attorneys in the City Attorney office from working on the instant case. In ruling on this motion the district court held that attorneys Moss, Plaster, McClain, and Morales (hereafter the CAO Attorneys), who were previously permitted to withdraw as counsel of record on the basis that they might be called as witnesses in the case, were likewise barred from participation in the case. 38 A motion to bar under these circumstances is akin to a motion to disqualify, and as such, this Court reviews the district court's determination to bar under an overall abuse of discretion standard, in which we review the findings of fact for clear error, and the application of the rules of ethical conduct de novo. FDIC v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 50 F.3d 1304, 1311 (5th Cir.1995); Horaist v. Doctor's Hosp. of Opelousas, 255 F.3d 261 (5th Cir.2001). 39 However, the motion at bar deviates from the usual motion to disqualify in one significant respect. Here, the attorneys who were barred from participation in the case had previously requested that the district court allow them to withdraw as counsel of record. The CAO Attorneys asked the court to be permitted to withdraw because, some of the attorneys currently representing the Defendants may be called as witnesses in the case. The Court granted the motion to withdraw, but the Plaintiffs later moved to bar the very same attorneys who had withdrawn. The motion to bar alleged that the withdrawn attorneys were continuing to participate in the case. It is clear from the record that the district court construed the CAO Attorneys' motion to withdraw as a motion to withdraw from both presentation and participation in the case, and consequently when presented with Jackson's and Taylor's motion to bar the CAO Attorneys from participation in the case, the district court stated: 40 Plaintiffs have moved to bar based upon the Court's earlier order [permitting the withdraw of the CAO Attorneys]. Plaintiffs have not brought a motion to disqualify.... Because some of the attorneys who specifically withdrew from representation have continued to provide legal advice to Defendants, the Plaintiffs' motion is granted in part. 41 Thus, the district court understood its ruling on the motion to bar to be an enforcement of its early ruling withdrawing the CAO Attorneys. Our analysis here is distinguished from that which would be applicable in the context of a motion to disqualify. Were this an instance in which the district court disqualified a party's counsel of choice, ethical rules of conduct would govern the court's discretion to limit a party's right to the counsel of his choice. Here, however, the party in question moved the court to withdraw his counsel, and therefore no finding of disqualification was required for the attorney to be removed from the case. We note further that although it might have, the motion to withdraw fails to specify that the CAO Attorneys wished to be withdrawn from representation, but not from participation, in the case. Instead, the motion indicates only that the CAO Attorneys would be withdrawn as counsel of record. Moreover, it is not a clearly erroneous conclusion to surmise that attorneys who have been voluntarily withdrawn as counsel of record from a case are similarly withdrawn altogether from the case. 42 While both Appellees and Appellants point to rules which they deem to be controlling as to which attorneys could be barred by the district court and to what degree, both parties misapprehend the scope of a district court's discretion under the particular circumstances at bar. Appellees argue that the district court erred in barring the CAO Attorneys from participation in the case because Rule 3.08(a) of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct provides that attorneys who may be called to testify are barred from representation before the Court, but not from participation in the case. Appellees conclude that the district court confused the standard put forth in Rule 3.08 — which bars only representation, and only by the attorney who might be called to testify — with the concept of attorney disqualification, which potentially calls for the disqualified attorney to abstain from both representation and participation in a given case. 43 However, in asserting that the district court misapplied Rule 3.08(a) of the Texas Disciplinary Rules of Professional Conduct, Appellees are in error. Indeed, the district court did not apply Rule 3.08(a) at all, but instead expressly stated it found that the rule did not apply because there was no motion for disqualification pending. More importantly, Rule 3.08(a) governs the conduct of Texas attorneys, not the conditions under which a district court may bar participation by an attorney. Therefore the district court was not bound by Rule 3.08(a) in determining the degree to which attorneys who were withdrawn as counsel of record from the case could be involved in the case thereafter. 44 Apparently proceeding under the notion that the best defense is a good offense, Jackson and Taylor suggest that the district court did not go far enough, i.e., that the district court should have banned the entire City Attorney's Office as their motion requested. Pointing to Rule 83.15 of the Local Rules of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Jackson and Taylor argue that the entire City Attorney Office was disqualified from both participation and representation in the case. That rule provides in pertinent part that: 45 An attorney must not accept employment in a contemplated or pending case if the attorney knows ... that the attorney or another attorney in the firm may be called as a witness on behalf of the client.... If, after accepting employment in a case, an attorney learns ... that the attorney or another attorney in the firm may be called as a witness on behalf of the client, the attorney and the firm must withdraw from the case. 46 L.R.83.15(a),(c) of N.D.Tex. (emphasis added). However, Rule 83.15 is inapplicable here. Under the heading, Acceptance of Employment the rule details the circumstances in which an attorney should decline to accept employment ... in a case. The rule stipulates that when an attorney knows that he or someone in his firm may be called to testify in a given action, that attorney must decline to accept employment in the case. The policy supporting this rule is evident, and implicates conflict of interest concerns for the attorney acting as both an employee of a party to the suit, and a witness — concerns which are simply not relevant when applied to the City Attorney Office or other government agency. 47 Therefore, the district court did not err in ruling as it did on the motion to bar. The district court did not rely on either rule cited by the parties as controlling, and indeed neither rule cited by the parties is controlling. Instead the district court determined, in its discretion, to bar from participation those attorneys who had already been withdrawn as attorneys of record in the case. This determination does not constitute an abuse of discretion and consequently we will not disturb it.