Court Opinion

ID: 9765162
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:54:10.524243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:05.930744
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Associate Judge, Retired
(dissenting) .
Where I differ with the majority is at that point where they state that “[w]e are not here concerned with the.correctness of either the judge’s position or the lawyer’s position with respect to the propriety of the submission of the proposed ex parte order.” To me, the propriety of the attorney’s action in submitting the motion is decisive to the disposition of this case.
If the attorney were to shout obscenities to the judge, and the judge were to comment that such conduct was unbefitting a member of the Bar, it would be absurd to suggest that the misbehaving attorney had the absolute right to reply to such well-deserved rebuke. I could go along with the majority if they limited their holding to cases unvolving unjustified attacks on attorneys from the bench. If the attorney’s conduct is improper, however, judicial admonitions are proper and justified.
The majority suggest that the general principle that an attorney must desist from further argument once ordered by the court to do so, should not be arbitrarily applied without considering the matter which provokes the attorney’s persistence. But I would suggest that it is equally arbitrary to base the right of an attorney to persist on the nature of the judge’s comments without considering the circumstances which called forth the judicial censure.
*658I have examined the record in the instant appeal as to the entire course of events leading up to the contempt citation. I find that the appellant’s conduct was worthy of censure and that, therefore, the judge was justified in rebuking him for it. This being the case, I can see no reason for reversing the contempt conviction.
The record shows that on August 7, 1968, appellant submitted a “Motion for Ratification of Sale of Securities” to Judge Ryan to be ruled on as a “preliminary matter.” Preliminary matters are matters which are not scheduled for hearing by the court but which judges, by custom and for the convenience of attorneys and their clients, will entertain in summary fashion. Generally preliminary matters are not matters in controversy but which have been previously agreed on by the litigants and require only formal court approval. This approval is generally automatic. The judge sitting on preliminary matters can justifiably rely on the integrity of the attorneys who bring such matters before him.
Obviously, this method of handling preliminary matters is feasible only when those using the privilege deal fairly with opposing counsel and honestly and candidly with the court.
That appellant’s conduct was less than candid is apparent from the nature of the matter which he presented to Judge Ryan as a preliminary matter and his failure to give any indication that it was anything more than the typical pro forma consent order. Appellant did not call to the judge’s attention the fact that the subject matter of the motion might be foreign to the case under which the motion was captioned.1 Nor did he point out to the judge that the signature of the “opposing counsel” was far from indicating consent to the granting of the motion.2 The appellant failed to indicate that the service on “opposing counsel” had been effected only the day before, with the result that, under Rule 3(g) of the court, he had four more days in which to file an opposition to appellant’s motion.
These technical deficiencies alone made the motion submitted by appellant entirely inappropriate for consideration as a preliminary matter. In addition, the object of the motion, the invasion of the corpus of a trust set up for the education of minor children, in the amount of $11,000, was such as to preclude summary, ex parte disposition.
The merits of the motion, of course, were not considered by Judge Ryan. His concern was not whether the end sought was legally justified or not, but whether the means attempted to be used to achieve that end were ethical.
As it turned out, the beneficiaries, represented by their mother’s attorney, did file *659an opposition within the five-day period, and vigorously, although unsuccessfully, challenged the granting of the motion. The subsequent adversary proceeding on the motion indicates that, contrary to the impression given by appellant — that the matter was not in contention — there was in fact considerable controversy on the merits of the motion.
Appellant knew that the motion he submitted was not a matter which should be treated ex parte as a preliminary matter. His thirty years at the bar negate any possible inference that his attempt to have it so treated was due to inexperience.3 Rather, it is clear that appellant submitted the motion knowing it to be improper but hoping that the court would not notice, and would handle it as it does most preliminary matters, that is, with cursory attention and automatic, favorable action.
To quote Judge Ryan, appellant was ‘ improperly trying to stampede the court in signing an order favorable to his client.” Such an attempt might itself constitute contempt of court and warrant punishment.4 Appellant should have been relieved, rather than indignant, that the judge only verbally censured his conduct.
Canon 32 of the Canons of Professional Ethics warns that the importance of a client or cause, or the correctness thereof, cannot justify improper actions in their support and that “[w]hen rendering any such improper service * * * the lawyer invites and merits stern and just condemnation.”
I believe that the appellant’s improper conduct warranted the judge’s remarks and that he invited the contempt citation by taking issue with them. For that reason, I would affirm.

. The motion was captioned under the name and docket number of a divorce proceeding which had been heard and decided by Judge Atkinson, the parties to which were the appellant’s client and the client’s wife. The motion asked the court to authorize the sale of securities under the terms of a trust set up by the brother of appellant’s client to provide for the education of the three minor children of the parties to the divorce action. Since the only interested parties to the resolution of the motion would be appellant’s client, as trustee, and the minor children, as beneficiaries, there was a discrepancy between the interested parties and those involved in the suit. At the time of the service in question, the beneficiaries had no counsel of record. It is for this reason that the term “opposing counsel” is not technically correct. In all candor, the appellant, who must have been aware of the discrepancies, should have alerted the judge to the possibility that the motion was inappropriate as put forth.

. The motion had been signed by Mr. Kagen, counsel for the mother of the beneficiaries under the trust. A notation had been typed above the place where Mr. Kagen was to acknowledge receipt of service, which read: “Seen — No Objection.” This notation had been inked out and, beside it was handwritten: “received but not read with copy of proposed order.”

. Even if appellant had been mistaken in first presenting the motion to Judge Ryan, the judge gave him ample opportunity to realize and correct that mistake, by warning him on two occasions prior to the verbal reprimand that such a motion was unappropriate as a preliminary matter.

. In re Caffrey, 63 Wash.2d 1, 385 P.2d 383 (1963).