Court Opinion

ID: 9743489
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:34:40.483562+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:41.564056
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE UNDERWOOD, dissenting: I cannot agree that no conversion occurred here, nor do I agree that censure is an adequate sanction for the insensitivity to his professional responsibilities which respondent has manifested. It is undisputed that for two months after securing Meyers’ (his client’s) endorsement thereon respondent, for no apparent reason, delayed forwarding to the compensation insurer a check received in settlement of Meyers’ action against a third party. During that period he completely ignored the client’s numerous calls and visits inquiring about the settlement proceeds. After respondent finally acted and received the $1,500 due Meyers, it was deposited in respondent’s personal account, the balance in which subsequently fell below the amount owed the client. Respondent received the $1,500 early in March 1979. He made no effort to distribute to Meyers the money to which he was entitled until Meyers employed other counsel to collect the funds. Respondent in September, six months late, forwarded to that attorney a check dated March 14 for an amount substantially less than anticipated by Meyers. Most of the difference was claimed by respondent to represent an unpaid doctor’s bill. Respondent’s check was not honored by the drawee bank because of its date. Respondent’s explanation of the stale date was that he had written the client’s name and the date on the check and signed it on March 14, but did not fill in the amount because he hoped to compromise the doctor’s bill. Respondent also stated that when he deposited the client’s $1,500 check in his personal account he kept $100 in cash, and that he subsequently withdrew $1,400 in $100 bills which he placed in an envelope in his file. From this, he stated, he paid the doctor’s bill. Meyers eventually received $700 after being compelled to file suit to secure his money. When a lawyer places money belonging to a client in his personal account, as respondent did here, instead of in a trust account, he has, of course, violated the prohibition against commingling codified in Rule 9—102 of the Code of Professional Responsibility (81 Ill. 2d R. 9—102). When that account is dissipated by him to the point where it no longer equals or exceeds the amount due the client, the commingling becomes conversion, as the Hearing Board held in this case, and as we have repeatedly indicated. (In re Grant (1982), 89 Ill. 2d 247; In re Clayter (1980), 78 Ill. 2d 276; In re Bloom (1968), 39 Ill. 2d 250.) Whether respondent might have been able to secure funds from other sources with which to pay the client may be a relevant argument in mitigation of punishment, but on the issue of conversion that argument was said by this court in In re Brody (1976), 65 Ill. 2d 152, 157, to be “groundless.” See also In re Kesler (1982), 89 Ill. 2d 151. Even assuming the truth of respondent’s testimony that he had placed fourteen $100 bills in a file which was subsequently “lost” until just before the hearing, that money was apparently not intended for his clients, since he stated he intended to buy “classical stamps” with the balance remaining after his claimed payment of the doctor’s bill. In any event, such handling of clients’ funds has been consistently condemned by this court. In re Clayter (1980), 78 Ill. 2d 276; In re Lingle (1963), 27 Ill. 2d 459. Phrased in its simplest terms, what we have before us is a lawyer who neglected for two months to collect a check due his client, meanwhile ignoring repeated phone calls and office visits by the client; then he finally acted but deposited the proceeds therefrom in his personal account, which was subsequently depleted to the point where it was insufficient to cover the amount owed the client; thereafter, he neither gave nor sent to the client even the amount respondent admitted owing until after the client secured another attorney and filed suit. This court has frequently spoken of its responsibility to disclipline the legal profession. (In re Neff (1980), 83 Ill. 2d 20, 25; In re Zahn (1980), 82 Ill. 2d 489, 494; In re Sherman (1975), 60 Ill. 2d 590, 593.) In In re Abbamonto (1960), 19 Ill. 2d 93, 98, we said and repeated in In re Bloom (1968), 39 Ill. 2d 250, 254: “It is vital to the well-being of society that an attorney, who is an officer of the court and a part of our judicial system, should maintain the most scmpulous care in conducting his professional and business affairs.” If the protection to the public which our adoption of the Code of Professional Responsibility was intended to provide is to be meaningful, something more than censure is needed here. WARD and MORAN, JJ., join in this dissent.