Court Opinion

ID: 9809979
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 21:36:34.026921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:39:17.307581
License: Public Domain

Stacy, C. J.,
dissenting: Stripped of all redundance, the case is simply one of “substance” versus “form,” with the hands of the clock turned backward for a decision.
The respondent is a lawyer. On 18 July, 1929, the Superior Court of Mecklenburg County, Hon. Thos. J. Shaw, judge presiding, ordered an investigation into his conduct. C. S., 208. On 5 March, 1930, the Committee on Grievances of the North Carolina State Bar Association formulated an accusation and delivered it to the solicitor of the district, alleging that the said H. L. Strickland, while engaged as a licensed attorney in the city of Charlotte, “did by himself and through others solicit professional business from time to time and from divers persons,” etc. C. S., 209. Thereupon, the solicitor drew up an accusation and motion for disbarment, or suspension, and duly cited the accused to appear and answer as provided by C. S., 210. In his citation the solicitor named Pete Eellos, among others, as one of the persons importuned by the respondent. Many technical objections were interposed and overruled before the hearing. Finally a bill of particulars was requested. In this the respondent, inter alia, was, for the second time, specifically charged with soliciting business from Pete Eellos in violation of C. S., 207. The verdict, induced by ample evidence, sustains this particular accusation. There is no question about the violation of the statute.
*634The respondent challenges the validity of the proceeding, purely civil in its nature (In re Ebbs, 150 N. C., 44, 63 S. E., 190), solely upon the attenuate ground that the name of Pete Fellos, ipsissimis verbis, nowhere appears in the accusation as formulated by the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association. And he wins! Has not “substance” again been sacrificed to “form,” or “form” been exalted over “substance?” The majority says not. I disagree.
The General Assembly never intended that a gossamery question of procedure, such as here presented, should be held wholly sacrosanct in disbarment proceedings, and less so in other cases. Even in criminal prosecutions, where, for obvious reasons, matters of procedure are required to be observed with greater particularity than in civil actions, bills and warrants are no longer subject to quashal “by reason of any informality or refinement,” C; S., 4623, and judgments are not to be stayed or reversed for nonessential or minor defects. C. S., 4625. Many cases have been upheld in the face of far more grievous defects than the one here alleged. S. v. Beal, 199 N. C., 278; Jenette v. Hovey, 182 N. C., 30. The modern tendency is against technical objections which do not affect the merits of the case. S. v. Hardee, 192 N. C., 533.
Nor was it the purpose of the Legislature to require an affidavit from the persons solicited to make the statute operative or effective. But this is what the present decision does. The quotation, “accompanied by the written affidavit of any person or persons who make charges against said attorney,” stops short of the words, “if any,” as used in the statute.
The order of Judge Shaw, which is a part of the record proper, being an order in the cause, is given no effect because, it is said, “the record does not disclose that any proceedings were had in pursuance of said order.” Pete Fellos testified: “I went before the Grievance Committee, which consisted of Mr. Henry Fisher.” This was the commission appointed by Judge Shaw under C. S., 208, as amended by chapter 287, Public Laws, 1929. "Whether the solicitor gained his information from this source or the name of Pete Fellos was included in the accusation of the Grievance Committee of the Bar Association under the appellation of “divers persons;” can make no difference so far as the merits are concerned.
But even if the alleged procedural irregularity, seized upon by the respondent, be conceded, the capital importance of which is denied, what has become of the inherent, as well as the statutory, power of amendment in the Superior Court in civil actions or special proceedings? C. S., 547; Casualty Co. v. Green, ante, 535; Gilchrist v. Kitchen, 86 N. C., 20.
The case turns on a Lilliputian point made Brobdingnagian. That is all there is in it. Why debate it further? Cui bonof