Opinion ID: 1185890
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Blackman Case

Text: A year earlier, in April 1978, the accused was retained by Mr. Martin Blackman, a New York attorney, to obtain guardianship of his 23-year-old son William Blackman, who had joined a group organized as the International Society of Krishna Consciousness and sometimes referred to as the Krishna Society or Hare Krishna. The issues arising out of this episode, as framed by the Bar's fifth, sixth, and seventh causes of complaint, are whether the accused acted unprofessionally, first by seeking the guardianship order in the circuit court for Marion county, then by misrepresenting his intention to bring the ward before the court, and later by making a certain assertion in argument to the court. The following appears from the transcript of four hearings before the Marion county circuit court, which were made part of the record in the disciplinary proceeding, and from the accused's testimony in this proceeding. At the first hearing, on April 6, 1978, Martin Blackman described certain changes in his son's appearance and demeanor during the preceding years of the son's membership in the Krishna Society that caused the father concern for the son's physical and mental well being. He testified that so far as he knew his son had lived in Oregon since 1975. The son had last met his family in Portland in February, 1978, about two months before the hearing. The guardianship was requested under ORS 126.100 to ORS 126.143. [1] The statute places the venue for guardianship proceedings in the place where the incapacitated person resides or is present. ORS 126.100. Mr. Rudie elicited no testimony that William Blackman had been known to be in any other place in Oregon than Portland. From the father's testimony it appears that William lived in a house in Portland with other young members of the society and went from place to place [to] shopping centers or schools or public events ... and they would solicit funds. Thereafter, in response to questioning by the court, Mr. Blackman testified: Q Where has he been? A He's been pretty much around the state. In fact, when I said he's been in Oregon, he always seems to return to Oregon. He has been outside of Oregon. In other words, he has traveled, perambulated around the country. Q Where was he when you had your visit in February? A We saw him in Portland. This was the extent of the evidence bearing on venue. The Bar maintains that on the facts of record, the accused knew that the petition for guardianship should have been filed in Multnomah county and by filing it in Marion county exceeded the bounds of representation imposed by DR 7-102(A). [2] The trial board made no finding concerning this charge beyond listing it among those dismissed as unproven. The Disciplinary Review Board found it probable that the Accused knew the ward was much more apt to be present in Multnomah county than in Marion County at the time the ex parte order was applied for in Marion County. However, the board assumed that it is improper to file a proceeding in the county where venue is wrong [only] when it will intentionally harass the opponent or will have such an effect as a practical matter, and that improper venue cannot inconvenience a respondent in an ex parte proceeding. The requirement of intent to harass or prejudice a respondent might have bearing if professional misconduct is charged under DR 7-102(A)(1), supra note 2. But it is not an element under other paragraphs of the rule, which state obligations to the law and the administration of justice beyond protecting the interests of an opposing party. Thus, there is at least as much obligation, under paragraphs (3) and (5), not to misstate or conceal facts or law in order to obtain venue in an ex parte proceeding, in which no one will appear to challenge venue and the court must be able to count on the professional trustworthiness of the attorney seeking the ex parte order. Moreover, the execution of an improperly obtained ex parte order obviously is a serious imposition on the ward whether or not the venue itself is. In response the accused makes two arguments. One is that because members of Krishna groups go from place to place to raise funds or recruit members, William Blackman was as likely to be in Marion county as in any other county. Taken to its logical conclusion, this argument would justify the accused in seeking an ex parte guardianship order in any circuit court he found advantageous or convenient. (Mr. Rudie's office is in Salem, the Marion county seat.) However, the accused and his client knew where William lived in Portland. The father had visited him there. The accused had no reason to consider the chance that William at the time of the petition was present in Marion county, as required by ORS 126.100, to be more than one of many possibilities. William was in fact found and taken into custody in Portland. Second, the accused argues that he made no misrepresentation of fact to the circuit court but candidly discussed the matter of venue with the circuit judge both in chambers and on the record. We have quoted above what little the transcript of the guardianship hearing contains with respect to venue in that court. But this case is not a challenge to the guardianship order; it is a complaint of unprofessional conduct of a kind to which the off-the-record discussion may well be pertinent. We do not know what discussions concerning venue occurred in chambers. The Bar did not call the circuit judge as a witness. This leaves the charge of a knowingly misleading representation too much to inference from an incomplete record. Under the circumstances, we agree with the trial board that this cause of complaint was not proved. We reach the same conclusion with respect to the charge that the accused misrepresented his intention to produce the ward in court, as required under the temporary guardianship order. The court had reduced the length of the temporary guardianship asked for because it believed that a medical and psychological examination could be conducted in Oregon rather than requiring one of the few experts recognized as such by the accused. [3] The order actually signed on April 6, 1978, empowered the father, as temporary guardian, to have the Ward counselled, examined, and treated by persons including but not limited to physicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and lay persons  (emphasis added), and set a show cause hearing either ten days after the guardian obtained custody or on April 26. In fact, Mr. Blackman took his son with him to New York, and they did not return on the date set in the order. At a subsequent hearing the circuit judge seriously considered contempt proceedings against Blackman and Rudie. Mr. Rudie took the position that he had advised his client, who was himself a lawyer, of the court's order and was not personally responsible to secure his and the ward's appearance. Eventually the Blackmans did return to court, and the court did not press the contempt charge. The disciplinary complaint, however, is that the accused deceived the court because he never intended or expected to bring William before the court until William had been subjected to deprogramming. The inclusion of counseling or treatment by lay persons in the order submitted to the court suggests that not all the experts were to be physicians or psychologists, whose availability in Oregon for diagnostic purposes the court had stressed before signing the temporary ex parte order. William Blackman was not examined in Oregon, as the court intended. The accused testified that he suspected that Mr. Blackman would take his son out of the state, but there was nothing in the order to prevent that. In fact, he accompanied the Blackmans to San Diego, California. The question is whether the Bar proved that the accused expected and intended this course of events when he obtained the ex parte order. We recognize that direct testimony of intentional misrepresentation is rare and that such a finding often must rest on compelling inferences from the circumstances. From Mr. Rudie's own testimony, he felt no obligation to disclose his and Mr. Blackman's plans. He said: The Court never asked me. I did not volunteer the information. At the time we presented the petition we didn't know what would happen. We do not commend that as a model of candor. But it falls short of knowing misrepresentation as to William's return on the date set in the court's order. We do not find this accusation proven by clear and convincing evidence. A final charge in the Blackman case is that the accused improperly expressed a personal view of a factual issue and of the justness of a cause, contrary to DR 7-106(C). [4] In a hearing on April 14 at which the propriety of the ex parte order was challenged by an attorney for the International Society of Krishna Consciousness, the accused stated in the course of argument: If this guardianship is dismissed I have reason to believe that Mr. and Mrs. Blackman will never see their son again, in court or out of court. The Bar points to this as a statement by counsel of personal knowledge a fact when he was not testifying as a witness. The accused claims that there was a foundation for it in testimony at the earlier hearing, but that is an afterthought; he did not refer to any evidence when he made the statement. The statement was one of prediction rather than of a past or present fact, and it may be that the strictures of DR 7-106 are not infrequently overlooked in oral argument, which does not excuse the breach. However, in the actual context of these particular hearings the assertion by counsel could not mislead the court, and we shall disregard this breach as de minimis.