Court Opinion

ID: 9705427
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:05:28.400743+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:11.020449
License: Public Domain

JAMES M. SMART, JR., Judge,
concurring.
I concur with the principal opinion, which is quite thorough in taking us through some new and difficult issues. But because this appeal so directly raises a challenge to the objectivity of Judge Wells, who has not spoken for himself with regard to the proceedings below, I write separately to state a slightly different perspective of the court’s actions in their factual context. Part of that context emerges *492from the background of State ex rel. Angoff v. Wells, 987 S.W.2d 411 (Mo.App.1999), which involved the conflict between Judge Wells and Jay Angoff, the Director of the Department of Insurance, over the issue of the authority of the Director to terminate the special deputy receiver of ProMed without the approval of the court. That case, clearly, involved more than a difference of opinion concerning an issue of law. To understand, we must go back to the Director’s attempt to name Ms. Sauer as SDR of ProMed.
By spring or early summer of 1998, Judge Wells surely knew that a bar association investigation, and an FBI investigation, had been launched into Elisabeth Sauer’s billing practices in the USPM receivership as a result of an accusation apparently made by an office worker.1 Although such investigations are confidential, the investigation could hardly be conducted without the knowledge of the judge supervising the receivership in question. Moreover, Judge Wells would have assumed that the Director knew about the investigation. This sheds much light on Judge Wells’ reaction when, in June 1998, he learned, to his obvious irritation, that Ms. Sauer was being named SDR of yet another receivership estate, ProMed. Because Ms. Sauer was the messenger bearing the news of the Director’s intention to appoint her in place of the acting SDR, the Judge’s reaction surely had nothing to do with any inherent bias against Elisabeth Sauer, or any favoritism toward the acting SDR, but was an expression of his frustration with the Director.
Judge Wells consistently fought against allowing the Director to unilaterally remove an SDR. He fought it with regard to the ProMed receivership, and he also fought it with regard to the removal of Ms. Sauer, even though he had already accused her of improprieties. His actions reflect specifically his desire to retain jurisdiction, and his distrust and dissatisfaction with the Director.
Having learned that there were specific allegations of billing irregularities against Ms. Sauer, and believing he had a responsibility as the judge supervising the receivership, Judge Wells ordered the audit pursuant to Section 375.1280. Because the Director expressed no concerns about any fiduciary breaches until after the entire audit had charged significant improprieties, the Judge obviously felt that he could not count on the Director to take aggressive action in behalf of the receivership. The Judge also faced the same problem we face in reviewing this matter: there is not much authority available on the proper role of the receivership judge in relation to an audit and surcharge hearing.
As for the issue of recusal, it should be remembered that receiverships are complicated undertakings, and that Judge Wells had much acquired knowledge concerning the entire matter. There would have been some loss of knowledge by turning the matter over to another judge. Also, as already noted, the court certainly viewed itself as having to take on to some extent the prosecutorial role, including taking precautions to ensure that the auditor had the chance to interview witnesses confidentially. That does not mean the Judge should not have recused himself; it simply means there were reasons in the court’s mind for not doing so. It also fits with the notion that, regardless of how his actions might have appeared to Ms. Sauer, Judge Wells is entitled to the presumption that his actions were born not of bias, but of a commitment to do his duty as he saw it.
*493The meetings of Judge Wells with the auditor outside of Ms. Sauer’s presence were not improper to the extent that they related to the procedure of the audit and to the extent that the court believed the confidentiality of the procedure must be maintained in order to achieve a reliable result. There is no showing that these meetings went beyond issues of audit procedure. Also, in evaluating the contacts between Judge Wells and the attorney for McPherson, the Acting Director (who replaced Angoff), it must be remembered that receivership judges routinely engage in exclusive communications with receivers and their deputies. Although under the circumstances here those contacts may have had an unfavorable appearance, again there is no evidence of ill motives.
Regardless of motives, however, I agree that the accumulated circumstances required more sensitivity on the part of the court to the issue of appearance. I think it is now clear that where the judge has been active in directing the course of the audit of the accused fiduciary and has made clear that he is driven by suspicion of the fiduciary’s wrongdoing, there are strong reasons for the receivership judge to turn the surcharge hearing over to another judge. For the foregoing reasons, I concur in the ruling that Judge Wells should have recused himself from the surcharge proceedings on the audit.

. Our record does not disclose the outcome of these investigations, but there is no indication that any indictment or disciplinary action was taken against Ms. Sauer.