Court Opinion

ID: 9759150
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 00:07:10.317598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:59.812564
License: Public Domain

DOUGLAS W. GREENE, Special Judge,
dissenting.
In 1915, Missouri, by statute, banned the corporate practice of law. 1915 Mo.Laws 99, 100. Successor statutes continuing such ban have been in force ever since, with an exemption being granted in 1963, which provided that attorneys, as well as members of nine other professions, could form professional corporations to render the same type of service the individual licensed incorporators were entitled to perform under Missouri law. See Chapter 356 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri. Allstate is admittedly not a professional corporation, as that term is defined in Chapter 356. It is a foreign corporation whose purpose, as far as this litigation is concerned, is selling liability insurance and servicing those insurance contracts. As such, Allstate is subject to all applicable Missouri statutes, Pacific Intermountain Exp. Co. v. Best Truck L., Inc., 518 S.W.2d 469, 473 (Mo.App.1974), and is subject to revocation or suspension of its license to do business in this state, if it violates Missouri law. Section 375.881.1(6), RSMo, as amended 1985.
The statutory prohibition against the practice of law by corporations is a legitimate exercise of legislative police power. State ex rel. McKittrick v. C.S. Dudley & Co., 340 Mo. 852, 862, 102 S.W.2d 895, 901 (banc), cert. denied, 302 U.S. 693, 58 S.Ct. 12, 82 L.Ed. 535 (1937); State ex inf. Miller v. St. Louis Union Trust Co., 335 Mo. 845, 74 S.W.2d 348, 357 (banc 1934).
Allstate, like any other corporation not exempted by Chapter 356, is bound by the plain, simple language of § 484.020.1, RSMo Supp.1984, which states that no corporation, with the exception noted shall engage in the practice of law. The practice of law is defined in § 484.010, RSMo 1978, as, among other things, appearing as an advocate, in a representative capacity, in proceedings pending in Missouri courts of record. Allstate has admitted that it is doing this and, by so doing, has admitted that it is practicing law. By the terms of § 484.020.1, it has no legal authority to do so. Violation of the statute has been declared to be a crime. Section 484.020.2. Allstate has announced its intention to continue in its violation of the statute unless enjoined from doing so.
The underlying reason the majority gives for condoning Allstate’s practice of law, in violation of Missouri statutes, is their astonishing thesis that the legislature has been asleep at the switch since the parent statute to § 484.020.1 was enacted in 1915, at which time automobiles were relatively rare, and the liability insurance business was in its infancy. Therefore, reasons the majority, it is the court’s responsibility to' modernize the statute by judicial fiat, so that insurance companies can evade the plain language of the law. The majority conclusion that the legislature has simply ignored a problem that needs solving flies in the face of the record, which shows that the legislature has periodically updated the statute, and made revisions to it, with the latest revision coming in 1982, without deeming it necessary to permit the practice of law by insurance companies.
Regulatory legislation created by judicial intervention erodes the doctrine of separation of powers, and creates unnecessary tension between the judiciary and the legislature. If Allstate sincerely believes that it should, through its employees, have the right to practice law, and that the present legislative ban against it doing so is outmoded and against the public interest, it should go to the legislature and attempt to get the law changed, as a determination of what considerations properly call for the exercise of the state’s police power is a legislative, and not a judicial function. McClellan v. Kansas City, 379 S.W.2d 500, 505 (Mo. banc 1974).
*959I believe that the discussion of the relative ethics of salaried lawyer employees of Allstate and private sector attorneys contained in the majority opinion is irrelevant, as no facts are shown in the record that would justify holding for, or against, Allstate on that basis. I can only observe that anyone who believes that in conflict of interest situations, a salaried lawyer employee of Allstate would not place the welfare of the corporation above that of the policy holder, who theoretically he represents, probably also believes in the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny.
I would issue the injunction.