Court Opinion

ID: 9753721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 19:24:17.662649+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:54:13.390401
License: Public Domain

HARRELL, J.
dissenting.
The majority generously finds that “respondent’s conduct occurred when she was suffering from a serious physical illness which appears to be causally connected to her misconduct.” (Majority (Maj.) op. at 418). In this regard, the *419majority oversteps the boundaries of the Court’s role in this case. “The hearing court’s findings of fact are prima facie correct and will not be disturbed unless they are shown to be clearly erroneous.” Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Wallace, 368 Md. 277, 288, 793 A.2d 535, 542 (2002). Judge Allison, the hearing judge, in her findings of fact, did not find that Respondent’s actions were caused by her illness. Rather, Judge Allison quite clearly rejected Respondent’s battle with osteomyelitis as a legal cause or mitigating factor with regard to the many and serious professional lapses proven in this case:
Throughout her trying medical ordeal, the Respondent practiced law. Perhaps bravely, but, as is now apparent, misguidedly, Respondent continued her practice "without adjusting for her medical condition. She refused help from her colleague and denied an inability to handle her legal practice. While not admitting to the violations of professional conduct with which she was charged, Respondent expressed remorse that ‘things had slipped through the cracks’ and opined that when she was ill, she should have done things differently.
Id. (Maj. op. at 409). West filed no exceptions to the hearing judge’s findings.1
We recently held that exculpatory factors “cause” misconduct only when they alter the mental state of an attorney to a degree that excuses the conduct. Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Vanderlinde, 364 Md. 376, 413-14, 773 A.2d 463, 485 (2001). Nothing in the record indicates that Respondent’s illness affected her mental condition or her judgment beyond that of the predictable stress any human being facing a serious medical condition experiences. While naturally one must sympathize with the difficult medical situation West confronted, stress alone does not mitigate the exceedingly poor judgment *420demonstrated by her consistent pattern, over several months, of neglect of her duties to the court and to her clients, exacerbated by her lying to cover up her failures. Disbarment is the appropriate sanction for this type of misconduct.
West engaged in a consistent pattern of conduct that included “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” MRPC 8.4(c). It is well settled that “[disbarment ordinarily should be the sanction for intentional dishonest conduct.” Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Cafferty, 376 Md. 700, 720, 831 A.2d 1042, 1054 (2003). The majority in the present case concedes that, “Respondent’s conduct is a most serious transgression,” yet fails to note that that conduct constituted a pattern of serious deceitful conduct over an extensive period of time. (Maj. op. at 415). The hearing judge found that West, for more than six months, violated Rule 8.4(c) in the course of her representation of her clients in eight separate matters. West produced misleading reports for her clients and concealed the status of cases from her clients. In addition, she concealed her medical condition from her partners, opposing parties, and the various courts before which she practiced.
Even beyond her dishonesty, West’s pattern of extreme neglect caused her clients serious harm. “[Wjillful and flagrant neglect of a client’s affairs is, in and of itself, the kind of misconduct by an attorney which can lead to disbarment.” Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Wallace, 368 Md. 277, 291, 793 A.2d 535, 544 (2002) (quoting Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Manning, 318 Md. 697, 704, 569 A.2d 1250, 1253 (1990)). West essentially abandoned clients in nine matters for several months and consistently lied about her actions, thus preventing her clients from learning the scope of her neglect or from taking timely remedial measures. As a result of her failure to perform even her most basic professional duties and her concealment of that failure, orders of default were entered in at least four cases, leading to at least three default judgments against her clients. Further, West’s clients were barred from presenting certain expert witnesses at trial on at least two occasions and were forced into settlements in at least five *421cases. Two of those settlements, in the Davis matter and in the Koehler matter, were particularly unfavorable insofar as they were more expensive for her clients than settlement offers that she previously failed to forward to them for consideration. When all of the misconduct is itemized, the hearing judge found that West committed seventy-four separate violations of the Maryland Rules of Professional Conduct.
Perhaps the most serious damage caused by West’s deceit and inexcusable neglect was to the reputations of her clients. West represented Maryland General Hospital and several individual health care professionals, including doctors, who worked at the Hospital. As a result of West’s actions, her clients either effectively were prevented from presenting a defense or had their defenses substantially undercut in at least nine professional malpractice actions. The settlements and default judgments against the medical personnel and the Hospital will stain their records and reputations for years to come. West quite likely could have prevented these losses had she disclosed her condition and asked for assistance from her law firm colleagues.
As noted above, the normal sanction for client neglect of this scale is disbarment. In Wallace we disbarred an attorney who, in six separate cases, committed similar acts of neglect and misrepresentation as West in the nine matters described in the hearing judge’s findings of fact in this case. Wallace failed to file required documents with the courts hearing five of his cases. 368 Md. at 282-88, 793 A.2d at 538-42. Three complaints Wallace filed were dismissed for failure to prosecute. Id. Wallace failed to inform his clients that those three cases were dismissed. Id. The Court also found that Wallace made misrepresentations regarding the status of his cases and that he failed to return in a timely manner fees owed to his clients. Id. We concluded in Wallace that:
The record in the case at bar does not indicate that respondent has received any previous reprimands or sanctions from this Court; nevertheless, the volume and severity of the complaints against respondent lead us to conclude that the appropriate sanction against respondent is disbarment. *422Respondent has engaged in a pattern of conduct that only the most severe sanction of disbarment will provide the protection to the public that this procedure is supposed to provide.
368 Md. at 293, 793 A.2d at 545.
Given the lack of exceptions by West to the hearing judge’s findings of fact and conclusions of law, the only issue before us is the appropriate sanction to impose. The majority claims that:
In cases where the attorney suffered from a serious physical or mental illness, we rarely impose the ultimate sanction of disbarment absent misappropriation of funds. The weight we accord to a physical or mental illness depends in part on whether the condition was causally related to the attorney’s misconduct and the seriousness of the charges.
(Maj. op. at 417). This is an inaccurate representation of our cases generally and, most certainly, of our recent cases. As the majority points out, the purpose of sanctioning attorneys is to protect the public and establish standards of acceptable versus unacceptable conduct for the legal profession, rather than to punish the particular errant attorney in a given case. Id. at 411. The mere fact that an attorney “suffered from a serious physical or mental illness” is not dispositive; we only have found illness to be a mitigating factor where it caused the misconduct.
As admitted in Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Vanderlinde, 364 Md. 376, 773 A.2d 463 (2001), our prior responses to potentially mitigating factors involving a respondent’s mental and physical health at the time of misconduct were somewhat inconsistent. 364 Md. at 405-07, 773 A.2d at 480-81. In Vanderlinde, however, we attempted to set a single standard for future consideration of such mitigation arguments in “cases of intentional dishonesty, misappropriation cases, fraud, stealing, serious criminal conduct and the like[J” 364 Md. at 413, 773 A.2d at 485. In such cases, as Judge Cathell wrote for us,
we will not accept, as “compelling extenuating circumstances,” anything less than the most serious and utterly *423debilitating mental or physical health conditions, arising from any source that is the “root cause” of the misconduct and that also result in an attorney’s utter inability to conform his or her conduct in accordance with the law and with the MRPC. Only if the circumstances are that compelling, will we even consider imposing less than the most severe sanction of disbarment
364 Md. at 413-14, 773 A.2d at 485 (emphasis added). It was our intention in Vanderlinde to sweep behind us inconsistent prior cases related to consideration of such mitigating factors, at least insofar as the misconduct in the particular case involved “dishonesty, stealing, intentional misappropriation, fraud, serious criminal offenses, and the like.” 364 Md. at 414, 773 A.2d at 485-86. West violated rule 8.4(c) and engaged in other dishonest acts. Therefore, we should adhere to the Vanderlinde standard in the present case.
In this case, the osteomyelitis that West claims as a mitigating factor is a painful bone infection that normally does not affect the mind directly. The Merck Manual 1343-46 (16th ed.1992). As such, osteomyelitis is not the kind of physical health condition that would cause West’s utter inability to conform her conduct in accordance with the law and with the MRPC, and it should not be treated as a mitigating factor to reduce the ordinary sanction for the scale and type of misconduct demonstrated by this case.
Our purpose in Vanderlinde was to terminate a perpetuation of the sometimes conflicting applications in our prior cases. Yet, a scant two years later, the majority here regresses to 1978 and invigorates Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Finne-sey, 283 Md. 541, 391 A.2d 434 (1978), which it claims “closely resembles the attorney’s conduct” in this case. (Maj. op. at 415). Finnesey involved an attorney’s misconduct in a single case where the client “suffered no monetary loss.” 283 Md. at 546, 391 A.2d at 436. By comparison, West appears to have cost her clients many thousands of dollars.2 Of the pre-*424Vanderlinde cases, a closer match is Attorney Griev. Comm’n v. Short, 303 Md. 317, 493 A.2d 362 (1985), where we found that an attorney’s heart attack and financial difficulties did not excuse misappropriation of funds. Where the attorney in Finnesey “attributed his neglect of Mrs. Bentley’s case on mental depression brought about by personal financial reverses,” Finnesey, 283 Md. at 545, 391 A.2d at 436, the attorney in Short attributed his misconduct to a physical ailment similar to the one West suffered. Short, 303 Md. at 319, 493 A.2d at 362-63. The more important point, however, is that our pre-Vanderlinde cases were so inconsistent that a case can be found to bootstrap just about any desired result. That is the haven resorted to by the majority here.
The argument that osteomyelitis “caused” West to engage in her pattern of neglect and deceit is a strained one at best. I suspect other members of the Maryland Bar, whether in solo, small firm, medium size firm, or large firm practice, deal constructively and positively, day-in and day-out, with serious illness as it impacts on their pursuit of their law practices. Osteomyelitis very well may have caused West to be unable physically to perform her duties to the court and to her clients. If that was the case, she should have informed the courts, clients, and attorneys with whom she worked that she could no longer, or for a time, manage her caseload. The record reflects that West unilaterally rejected the notion of seeking help from her colleagues and that she hid her condition from those with which she came into contact. The misconduct in this case was caused by exceedingly poor judgment, not osteomyelitis. I would find that West’s misconduct neither was caused by osteomyelitis nor mitigated sufficiently by her illness. Therefore, I would mete out the usual sanction of disbarment for misconduct of the scale and type in which she engaged.
Chief Judge BELL and Judge CATHELL have authorized me to state that they join in this dissent.

. Md. Rule 16-759(b)(2)(A), governing disposition of an attorney disciplinary case on review by this Court, provides: “If no exceptions are filed, the Court may treat the findings of fact as established for the purpose of determining appropriate sanctions, if any.”

. She may have cost her clients $75,000 in just the Koehler matter. West failed to forward an early $75,000 settlement offer to her clients *424for consideration. After a default judgment as to liability was taken, the client settled the matter for $150,000.