Opinion ID: 1185776
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The First Cause of Complaint

Text: The Bar's position is that the accused's conduct violates Disciplinary Rule 1-102(A)(4): A lawyer shall not: Engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation. [4] The Bar is asserting that the accused knew that he could not receive credit for taking a course that he was employed to teach and that, nevertheless, he enrolled in that course for the sole purpose of avoiding a reduction in his VA subsistence payments, and thereby obtained VA benefits to which he was not, and could not be, entitled. The accused's explanation is that, when faced with the cancellation of the class in early October, he could not find another course to substitute that did not conflict in scheduling with his other classes. He asserts that he only enrolled in his own class as a stopgap measure to enable him to find a course which would not present a scheduling conflict. On cross-examination the accused testified: Q. When you registered in your own class, Mr. Houchin, did you feel you were going to benefit personally as well as financially? A. No. My reason in doing that was to keep the veteran benefits from being reduced or terminated until I found another course to register in. I did benefit, because in that course I did more research than I did in all the other courses because I am not daily working in civil matters. But I didn't benefit exactly as a student, but because I had to work as a teacher. The evidence indicates, however, that the accused did not diligently concern himself with finding another course in which to register. Some four weeks went by until he was notified that the VA would not pay benefits for taking his own course. Apparently he was quite willing to accept subsistence benefits as a nine-hour credit student rather than what he actually was, namely a six-hour credit student, until the VA balked. [5] He then immediately dropped his own course and signed up for a course entitled Concepts. That class met at the same time as did Introduction to Law, another course being taken by the accused at the time. We find, as did the Disciplinary Review Board, that the accused intended to continue in Civil Procedures and was not working to resolve a scheduling conflict. We hold that the accused's conduct is proscribed by Rule 1-102(A)(4) quoted above. The accused is guilty of the first cause of complaint.