Court Opinion

ID: 9739772
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:20:38.76463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:13.829574
License: Public Domain

NEUMANN, Justice,
concurring in result.
I concur in the result. My only concern is that the Court’s opinion seems to suggest Becker’s restitution eliminates both the actual and the potential injury to his client, and thereby changes this from a NDSILS 4.13 case, requiring public reprimand, to a NDSILS 4.14 case, requiring only a private admonition. I believe the definition of potential injury in the NDSILS makes it clear that potential injury is harm that is reasonably foreseeable at the time of the lawyer’s misconduct. (Emphasis added.) The effect of Becker’s later restitution, therefore, cannot be to eliminate the potential harm, which was determined at the time of the misconduct. Rather, the effect must be a subsequent mitigation of the negligent misconduct itself. I see this as a case in which Becker’s negligence in *307dealing with his client’s property caused potential injury, and therefore justifies public reprimand under NDSILS 4.13, while his restitution is a factor which justifies a reduction in the degree of discipline to be imposed, pursuant to NDSILS 9.32(d). The restitution does not eliminate the potential harm, and thus somehow turn this into a NDSILS 4.14 case.
While my argument may appear to be a niggling distinction without a difference in the present case, I fear that a less rigorous analysis and application of our standards in this case may return to haunt us in subsequent cases in which the facts may be more complex, and the resulting sanction less appropriate.