Court Opinion

ID: 9766434
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 04:48:17.046894+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:22.411909
License: Public Domain

*210CLIFFORD, J.,
dissenting.
In January 1979 respondent, Roger Peterman, undertook to represent one Ernest McCain in connection 'with McCain’s claims resulting from an automobile accident. McCain had two separate claims: one for personal injury protection (PIP) benefits against Keystone Insurance Company, and a separate claim against the third-party tortfeasor, whose liability carrier was United States Fidelity & Guaranty Insurance Company (USF & G). In connection with the latter claim respondent decided “to have [McCain] evaluated” by a physician. Before the Committee on Character he testified that he did so “because I was told that that’s what you must do in order to build up the specials.”
To that end he communicated with Dr. Richard Kaplan, previously unknown to respondent but recommended to him by a professional colleague. Kaplan refused to treat the client unless he received a guarantee of payment, whereupon respondent wrote and hand-delivered to the physician a letter in which respondent personally guaranteed “the payment of [Kaplan’s] bill for evaluation and treatment” of McCain. Thus reassured, Dr. Kaplan treated respondent’s client from January to September 1979 with “massage and hydra-therapy, heat and water treatment and massage,” resulting in a total bill for services of $2816.52, of which Medicare paid $1100.60.
In payment of the balance of $1625.92 due Dr. Kaplan, Keystone Insurance Company, the PIP carrier, issued three drafts: one dated August 9,1979, in the amount of $479.31, payable to Ernest McCain; a second draft dated March 21, 1980, in the amount of $149.64, payable to Ernest McCain; and a third draft dated May 21, 1980, in the amount of $996.97, payable to Ernest McCain and Richard Kaplan.
Keystone forwarded all three drafts to respondent, but respondent made no payment to Kaplan. Rather, he had the client sign the first draft, after which he either deposited it in his fiancee’s checking account, on which he had been given signature authority, or “held on to it as cash” — he could not remember which. Re*211spondent said that he knew he had to pay the doctor, but acting on the advice of an attorney “who was telling me how to handle this case,” he thought he should wait until he had received a report from the physician.
The second draft from Keystone, in the amount of $149.64, likewise bore only the client’s name as payee. Respondent obtained McCain’s signature on it, endorsed it also himself, and deposited it in his own checking account (by that time he and his fiancee had been married). He had no attorney business account or trust account, and in fact was entirely unaware of any professional responsibility to maintain such accounts. As with the proceeds from the first draft, respondent used the funds from the second draft “in the general course of [his] daily activities,” which included “obtaining heroin * * * on a daily basis.”
Keystone’s third draft, in the amount of $996.97, was made payable to respondent’s client and the physician. Respondent secured McCain’s signature on the draft and then forged Dr. Kaplan’s name. Through an electronic deposit machine he deposited the draft to his and his wife’s account and withdrew either $150 or $200 in cash (whatever the cash limit was — respondent could not recall) and immediately purchased drugs. The balance of the funds from that draft, according to Peterman, remained in the account and “were probably used by my wife for her purposes or for our joint purposes, probably would have [been] applied to our rent.” None of the money went to Dr. Kaplan, who eventually had to obtain a judgment against respondent and even then was unsuccessful in collecting all of the funds due him. (Dr. Kaplan has since been paid in full.)
As the above recitation indicates, Keystone sent to respondent the second and third drafts three months and five months respectively after our decision in In re Wilson, 81 N.J. 451, 409 A.2d 1153 (1979).
The Disciplinary Board of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that “respondent committed the forgery [of Dr. Kaplan’s signature on the third draft], in addition to co-mingling and *212converting client funds owed to the client’s physician * * (Emphasis supplied.) The Board’s report continues: “Respondent wilfully misappropriated entrusted funds and used them for his own purposes.” Those purposes included the purchase of heroin and alcohol. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania convicted defendant of misdemeanor theft charges, and respondent was disbarred in that jurisdiction, which readmitted him to practice in 1991.
The concept of “wilful[ ] misappropriation of entrusted funds” and “converting client funds,” as found by the Pennsylvania disciplinary authorities, is straightforward, unambiguous, not infected by anything fancy. The conduct it describes is precisely what the Wilson rule makes grounds for disbarment in New Jersey. The unmistakable import of the Disciplinary Board’s report is that respondent stole the money that his client owed to Dr. Kaplan, to whom respondent had promised to make payment and on whose behalf he had received the funds. The arrangement with the physician had been entered into as a necessary — but hardly laudable — component of what respondent believed his representation of the client required: the hiring of a doctor to “build up the specials.” Keystone’s drafts came into respondent’s hands for the sole purpose of paying Dr. Kaplan, to whom respondent had given a written guarantee of payment; and respondent’s sole legitimate function in respect of the third draft would have been to have McCain endorse the draft bearing his and Dr. Kaplan’s names as payees and dispatch the draft to Kaplan. Respondent had the draft in trust for that sole purpose. His “knowing misuse” was not simply of “non-client funds,” as the Court concludes, ante at 209, 632 A.2d at 275, but rather, as the Disciplinary Board in Pennsylvania found as a fact, of “client funds owed to the client’s physician.”
As much as does the Court do I applaud and admire Peterman’s heroic rehabilitation. But New Jersey lawyers must be struck, as I am, by the paradox of our admitting to practice a Pennsylvania lawyer whose offense, had it been committed while he was a member of this state’s bar, would have resulted in his name being *213stricken from the roll because of a flat-out, unvarnished violation of the Wilson rule.
I would reverse the Committee’s certification.
Justice GARIBALDI joins in this dissent.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN and STEIN — 5.
For reversal — Justices CLIFFORD and GARIBALDI — 2.