Court Opinion

ID: 9718588
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 07:27:35.067345+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:00:02.659730
License: Public Domain

O’HERN, J.,
dissenting.
I joined the dissenting opinion in In re Bell, 126 N.J. 261, 596 A.2d 752 (1991) that suggested:
[Although the Wilson rule [of almost invariable disbarment] is the right rule for the vast majority of misappropriation cases, the inflexibility with which it can be applied runs the risk of creating within our attorney-discipline system an almost reflexive approach to such cases, obscuring and ignoring the individual circumstances to an intolerable degree.
[Id. at 267, 596 A.2d 752 (Stein, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part) (quoting In re Konopka, 126 N.J. 225, 241, 596 A.2d 733 (1991) (Stein, J., concurring).]
In Bell’s case, albeit confronted with more profound personal suffering, we expressed the dissenting view that there may be some cases in which personal circumstances will warrant relief from the almost invariable rule of disbarment under In re Wilson, 81 N.J. 451, 409 A.2d 1153 (1979).
Our human experience is sufficient to infer a relationship between severe personal stress and acts of imprudence or even desperation. The question should not be one of causation, but rather whether our disciplinary system is sufficiently flexible in unique circumstances to temper the imposition of discipline by taking into account the influence of extraordinary events. It should be in this case.
[Bell, supra, 126 N.J. at 269, 596 A.2d 752 (Stein, X, concurring in part and dissenting in part).]
I think in this case, as I did in Bell, that respondent should be suspended indefinitely from the practice of law with leave to apply for reinstatement at such time as he is able to demonstrate his fitness to resume practice.
A majority of the Disciplinary Review Board (DRB) recommended that respondent be disbarred under In re Hollendonner, 102 N.J. 21, 504 A.2d 1174 (1985) (for his failure to remit title insurance premiums), and In re Wilson, 81 N.J. 451, 409 A.2d 1153 (1979) (for his misuse of client funds from a real estate closing matter). Two members would have imposed a two-year suspension on the basis that medical evidence introduced in the diseiplin*15ary matter suggested some degree of mental impairment on Ms part.
To Ms credit, before us respondent did not challenge the factual findings made below. Rather, he urged that we consider the regrettable effects that long-term substance abuse had had upon his memory and ability fully to appreciate the nature and quality of his actions. His derelictions in the CMcago Title Insurance Company matter arose, not from Ms misconduct as an attorney for others, but from his role as an agent of the CMcago Title Insurance Company, a relationsMp that might have been viewed, had he not been an attorney, as a debtor-creditor relationsMp. The second matter, in the words of the DRB, “was respondent’s first real estate closing.” Respondent became involved in tMs transaction on the eve of the closing of title at the request of another attorney who had to withdraw from a possible conflicting representation. In respondent’s haste, he actually brought the wrong checkbook to the closing.
The presenter for the Office of Attorney EtMcs was candid to recognize the lack of venality in respondent’s conduct.
This Respondent is not a thief in the sense that he sits down and plots out a course of action to systematically steal money.
His misconduct was not the product of a thieving ... design or scheme, but a scheme in the sense of willful blindness ...[.] I don’t doubt that Respondent would have intended all along to pay Chicago Title their money at some point when he felt that he could afford to do it.
I don’t doubt that at whatever point he would have found out exactly how much of the Kohl/Meade [closing] fund[ ] monies he was using he would have replaced those.
But I submit that Respondent knew he needed money ... and he went to where money was available to him.
I submit that it is probably true that he didn’t know that exact amount of money he was invading on the KohkMeade side of the transaction, but he must have known he was dipping into their money because he knew he didn’t have any money of his own.
This young inner-city attorney, lacking the support staff and peer counselling that can be found in larger offices, “lost his etMcal compass” just as did the young prosecutor whom we returned to practice despite Ms removal of drugs from an evidence *16locker. In re Farr, 115 N.J. 231, 237, 557 A.2d 1373 (1989). John Downer does not strike me as a person with “an irredeemable absence of the character and integrity necessary to the practice of law in New Jersey.” In re Peterman, 134 N.J. 201, 207, 632 A.2d 271 (1993). With proper guidance he could represent the public, including a portion that is largely underrepresented.
For disbarment — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, POLLOCK, GARIBALDI, STEIN and COLEMAN — 6.
For suspension — Justice O’HERN — 1.