Court Opinion

ID: 9630309
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:08:04.005613+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:36.399006
License: Public Domain

FARRELL, Associate Judge,
concurring.
I join the court in declining to order reciprocal disbarment. I do so, however, under the compulsion of In re Williams, 464 A.2d 115 (D.C.1983), which in an appropriate case I would vote to reconsider.
The issue before the Maryland Court of Appeals, as stated by that court, was “[i]n substance ... whether Pearson may be relieved from [a judgment of] default [and hence disbarment] in order to have the [disciplinary] charges decided on an eviden-tiary record.” The default, in turn, had resulted from what the Court of Appeals concluded to be Pearson’s indifference and evasiveness in responding to disciplinary discovery.
In Williams, supra, however, we effectively held that it would violate constitutional due process to disbar an attorney “on [a] default judgment^ ] unsupported by proof.” Id. at 119. Our principal authority for so holding was Klapprott v. United States, 335 U.S. 601, 69 S.Ct. 384, 93 L.Ed. 266 (1949), which set aside a judgment by default in a naturalization proceeding. Bar Counsel seeks to distinguish Williams by pointing out that in this case ample proof of respondent’s dishonest conduct was adduced before the Maryland inquiry panel. Upon careful review of the record, however, I agree with Judge Reilly that neither the inquiry panel nor Judge Lerner, in rul*100ing on the motion for a default judgment, resolved upon that evidence the critical issue whether respondent had been authorized by his wife to sign the sale documents on her behalf. And, as noted, despite some ambiguous language in its opinion, the Maryland Court of Appeals framed the issue before it in terms of a default judgment and whether respondent had shown grounds for relief therefrom.1 The disbarment in Maryland thus runs athwart our holding in Williams, and prevents reciprocal disbarment. See D.C.Bar R. XI, § 11(e)(1) (reciprocal discipline not permitted where disciplining state’s procedure “constitute[s] a deprivation of due process”); § 11(c)(2) (same where “[tjhere was such infirmity of proof establishing the misconduct as to give rise to the clear conviction that the Court could not, consistently with its duty, accept as final the conclusion on that subject”).2
Were we writing on a clean slate, I could not agree that the Constitution prohibits a state from disbarring an attorney who in its judgment has engaged in a fundamental refusal to cooperate in the attorney disciplinary process. The denaturalization proceeding analogized to in Williams is decidedly inapposite to the conditional right which a state bestows upon an attorney to practice law in its jurisdiction. The practice of law remains a privilege, and our rules governing the Bar — presumably like Maryland’s in this respect — provide that it is “misconduct” subject to “discipline” for a member of the Bar to “[f]ail[ ] to respond to a written inquiry from the Court or the Board [on Professional. Responsibility] in the course of a disciplinary proceeding without asserting, in writing, the grounds for refusing to do so.” D.C.Bar R. XI, § 2(b)(4). A failure to respond to disciplinary discovery flagrant and repeated enough would, in my view, allow a state constitutionally to cancel an attorney’s license and require him or her to seek reinstatement (as in the District of Columbia) after a mandatory period of disbarment.
My colleagues assert that Maryland disbarred respondent because his “answers to [Maryland] bar counsel’s discovery requests were unsatisfactory.” Ante at 99. The unanimous Maryland Court of Appeals, as. well as Judge Lerner, viewed respondent’s failure to cooperate in discovery more gravely. Except for Williams, I would defer to Maryland's judgment that respondent’s indifference to complying with the disciplinary process was severe enough to give rise to a fortunately rare case justifying disbarment for default.
I do not believe, however, that this is an appropriate case to reconsider Williams’ flat prohibition of disbarment (even reciprocally) without a determination of actual misconduct. Respondent is elderly; and it does not appear from the record — which includes his failure to respond to the disciplinary proceedings in the District of Columbia at any time — that he has any intention of practicing law again in this jurisdiction. Indeed, judging from his evident failure to file any supplemental registration statements setting forth changes in address, see D.C.Bar R. II, § 2(1), it seems *101doubtful that he qualifies for current membership in good standing in this Bar. See D.C.Bar R. II, §§ 2(3), 5. It is enough, therefore, for me to disassociate myself from the court’s conclusion that respondent’s disbarment “constituted a deprivation of due process,’’ ante at 99. Even if Williams compels it, that conclusion is an unjustified deprecation of the judgment of our sister jurisdiction.

. The ambiguous language I refer to is the Court of Appeals' statement with regard to Judge Lerner’s "finding of fact” that Mrs. Pearson was never aware of respondent’s actions in signing her name until after the closing took place. The Court of Appeals stated:
That is a finding ... based on the default. It is also a finding which is supported by proper inference from the requests for admissions of fact which were admitted by failure to respond, without regard to the default for failure of discovery. [Emphasis added.]
In Williams, however, we said that any such admission by failure to respond, in order to be considered, must be “one giving weight to sworn evidence.” 464 A.2d at 119. That is (apparently), such admissions may receive weight only when combined with "sworn evidence” leading to a finding of misconduct sufficient to support disbarment. Otherwise, for the Williams court, reliance on admissions by failure to respond is just a sub-species of forbidden disbarment by default — the basic principle of Williams that I would reexamine.

. The latter exception (§ 11(c)(2)) I take to be a variant of the "due process" bar to reciprocal discipline, else I can find no source for our "duty” to abandon the normal "deference — for its own sake — [which we give] to the opinions and actions of a sister jurisdiction with respect to attorneys over whom we share supervisory authority.” In re Velasquez, 507 A.2d 145, 147 (D.C.1986).