Court Opinion

ID: 9613070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:13:56.522653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:24.733077
License: Public Domain

LENT, J.,
concurring.
I write separately because I believe the opinion of the court neglects a loose end with respect to the third cause of complaint involving the accused’s conduct relating to the 1969 Pontiac. The charge is that the accused converted the vehicle. We have found the accused to be guilty on that charge.
Where lawyers have converted to their own use money of their clients, we have ordered disbarment. See the cases cited in In re Pierson, 280 Or 513, 517-518, 571 P2d 907, 908-909 (1977). In Pierson we stated:
“We hold that a single conversion by a lawyer to his own use of his client’s funds will result in permanent disbarment.”
280 Or at 518, 571 P2d at 909. I see no reason to draw a distinction between conversion of money and conversion of personal property of some other kind, such as an auto with an apparent market value of $2,000; therefore, if we were dealing with the same kind of conversion here as in the cases to which reference is above made, I would consider disbarment to be the appropriate sanction. In those cases, however, the respective lawyers, without any colorable claim of right, misappropriated their clients’ personal property.
In character or degree, conversion may occur on a spectrum from the most outright, blatant kind of theft to what may be regarded as innocent conversion. The latter kind of conversion is exemplified by the bona fide purchaser for value, without notice, who buys from a thief. The law quite rightly differs in its treatment of converters with respect to recoverable damages according to the kind of conversion shown to have occurred. See, e.g., Fredeen v. *103Stride, 269 Or 369, 525 P2d 166 (1974), where we held that as against the knowing converter the plaintiff could recover judgment for the market value of the chattel, damages for mental anguish and punitive damages, but as against the co-defendant innocent converter who acquired the chattel from the knowing converter, the plaintiff could recover judgment only for the market value of the chattel.
It appears to me that our statement quoted above from Pierson may have been too broad, given the range of conduct which may be embraced in the tort of conversion. I doubt very much that we would disbar a lawyer found to be guilty of an innocent conversion. That is not to say that our decision in Pierson is to be questioned. That was not a case of innocent conversion.
This leads me to an examination of the nature of the conversion in the case at bar. From the evidence I would infer that this conversion was at neither end of the spectrum. It lies somewhere between the ends because there appears to have been a colorable claim of right to act as did the accused. Were I convinced that the accused had not asserted that claim in good faith, I should have no hesitancy in treating him in the same manner as we did the accused in In re Pierson, supra, and I assume that the rest of the court should be of like mind.
In the recent past we have suspended some lawyers found guilty of violation of the disciplinary rules relating to conflicts of interest. See, In re Robertson, 290 Or 639, 624 P2d 603 (1981) (30 days); In re Scannell, 289 Or 689, 617 P2d 256 (1980) (60 days); In re Bartlett, 283 Or 487, 584 P2d 296 (1978) (six months); In re Hendricks, 282 Or 763, 580 P2d 188 (1978) (60 days); and In re Brown, 277 Or 121, 559 P2d 884, reh. denied 277 Or 731, 561 P2d 1030 (1977) (30 days). In the present case, the accused stands guilty of violating the rules pertaining to conflicts of interest and, in addition, of converting property of another. I concur in the action of the court in ordering suspension for 60 days.