Court Opinion

ID: 9775742
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 19:08:22.434243+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:30.777802
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge,
dissenting.
Filed Feb. 14, 1989
I respectfully dissent. The policy underlying attorney discipline in Missouri is to protect the public, not to pamper lawyers. The only way the public can be protected from conduct such as respondent’s is to withdraw respondent’s license and privilege to practice law.
Respondent and the majority opinion both urge us to accept the Master’s recommendation of a public reprimand. He contends that a sanction no more severe than a public reprimand is an appropriate response to isolated instances of attorney neglect that resulted in no actual prejudice to the client. In re Staab, 719 S.W.2d 780, 784 (Mo. banc 1986). Respondent relies on cases in which a public reprimand has been deemed a sufficient punishment for acts similar to those committed by respondent. In re Staab, 719 S.W.2d 780 (Mo. banc 1986); In re Hardge, 713 S.W.2d 603 (Mo. banc 1986); Matter of Colson, 632 S.W.2d 470 (Mo. banc 1982); Matter of Maloney, 620 S.W.2d 362 (Mo. banc 1981).
Mrs. Richardson testified that her daughter suffered some anxiety from the delay in completing the adoption and that her husband was prevented from becoming a beneficiary on Jessica’s life insurance policy but that no real harm was caused by the delay. True, the parties may say that no one has been seriously hurt but who can say what effect there may be on the life of the adoptee who hangs in family and parental limbo for four of the most formative years of his or her life. There is no kind of case where procrastination has the potential to do more harm. Respondent contends that there are a number of mitigating circumstances that should be considered in deciding the appropriate sanction. Respondent testified that he was having emotional problems due to his marital relationship which ended in divorce. He claims that this problem has been resolved because he has recently remarried. Respondent has also been under the care of a psychiatrist.
The majority’s recommendation of a public reprimand raises a number of questions in this case. Respondent was given a private reprimand in the form of the letter of admonition, which respondent accepted in accordance with terms of Rule 5.12. This admonition or reprimand was given on March 12, 1985. This case had come to respondent in January 1983 and still did not reach resolution until four years later. If *25the first reprimand was ineffective to change respondent’s manner of handling his law business, why should a second reprimand be expected to be more effective?
Following what has become in our cases the classic analysis of discipline, there would remain for consideration suspension or disbarment. A limited number of prior cases have suspended for a fixed or specified period of time.1 In this case the failure of the prior admonition or reprimand to change respondent’s manner of handling his business is the only evidence before us as to his present ability to handle law business for the public. We have no idea when or if this has or will change.
The respondent was under medical treatment for his personal problems before and at the time of the prior admonition or reprimand. The recent medical report tells us only that:
Mr. Randall Kopf has been under my care for treatment of depression from October 8th, 1982 to December 12th, 1983. The patient has been under my care for additional treatment from June 9th, 1986 to the present timé.
The patient’s treatment plan includes treatment with antidepressant medications, anxiolytic medications and stress and behavioral management conducted on an outpatient basis.
Under this treatment plan there has been some improvement in the patient’s symptoms of anxiety and depression and he continues under therapy.
The patient’s symptoms of low mood, concentration, memory function, efficiency, insomnia and tearfulness have continued to improve.
We have no medical proof he is cured.
This Court has no basis for speculating as to when a medical reevaluation should or will be done. In this same connection, respondent’s partners testified that certain steps had been taken to lighten respondent’s load in the office. This testimony did not reach the level of saying that respondent’s manner of handling his work had really changed. The burden is on respondent to show and prove his qualifications to be privileged to engage in the practice of law. Rule 8.14.2 There being no basis for a suspension for a specified period of time, our next consideration is suspension for an indefinite period of time.
In the past our cases have gone all over the place on the question of what conduct merits “indefinite suspension” and what merits “disbarment or removal.”3 There *26has never been a clear line of demarcation between the two. Indefinite suspension sounds softer and more palpable and certainly carries with it our inference that the Court would not be adverse to an application for reinstatement. Disbarment or removal, on the other hand, sounds harsher and more final. It certainly carries with it no inference of reconsideration or readmission.
A reading of the applicable rules and statutes suggests that there is no legal difference or distinction between the two. Rule 5.18 gives to the Court the general power to “reprimand the Respondent or suspend him from practice for an indefinite period or a time fixed in the discretion of the Court or disbar him_” Section 484.-190, RSMo 1986, says that the attorney may be “removed or supended” and Section 484.250, RSMo 1986, says that the Court shall pronounce judgment of “removal or suspension.” Section 484.270, RSMo 1986, again refers to the judgment of “removal or suspension.”
Our Rules are silent on the question of when a removed, disbarred or indefinitely suspended lawyer can apply for readmission to the bar. Our statutes are not. Section 484.270 speaks on the subject:
484.270. Judgment operates as removal or suspension — reinstatement, how secured. — Every final judgment or order of removal or suspension, made in pursuance of the provisions of this chapter by any court so authorized, shall operate, while it continues in force, as a removal or suspension from practice in all the courts of this state; provided, that any attorney or counselor at law removed from practice or suspended for a longer term than one year, on application to the supreme court or in the court in which the judgment of removal or suspension was first rendered, may be reinstated as such attorney or counselor at law, in the discretion of the court, at any time after one year from the date of such judgment of removal or suspension.
Clearly, with reference to either a judgment of “removal” which is used inter-changably with and includes disbarment, or a judgment of indefinite “suspension,” there is a statutory right to apply for readmission. The Court is granted the power to reinstate in either case “at any time after one year from the date of such judgment of removal or suspension.” As to “indefinite suspension” and “removal or disbarment”, there may be a distinction of meaning in our usual and customary use of the words, but it is a distinction with no legal difference or significance. This would seem to suggest that the Court could and should remove itself from the battle of disbarment versus suspension and return to the basic premise that the right to practice law is a privilege granted by the state. Rule 8.14. We should abandon use of the words disbarment or removal or indefinite suspension in our orders and more appropriately cast our orders in the form that “the license and privilege to practice law is withdrawn.” The statute itself suggests to the respondents the appropriate time for making application for readmission.
In terms of our prior thinking, the facts of this case clearly mandate the minimum of an indefinite suspension. I would order respondent’s license and privilege to practice law withdrawn.

. One difficulty with the suspension for a specified period of time is that it smacks of punishment as opposed to protection of the public.

. Rule 8.14. Burden on Applicants
The practice of law in this State is a privilege. The burden of demonstrating that the requirements of this Rule have been met shall be upon the applicants.

. Compare, In re Adelman, 734 S.W.2d 509 (Mo. banc 1987) (failure to pay over money collected for client and negligent handling of client’s stock transfers warranted indefinite suspension); In re Littleton, 719 S.W.2d 772 (Mo. banc 1986) (improper sexual advances toward client and retaining as legal fee money accepted to pay client’s bond warranted indefinite suspension); In re Lechner, 715 S.W.2d 257 (Mo. banc 1986) (failure to turn over claim files in personal injury action to subsequent counsel, despite being notified of termination of employment and receiving written request for files, failing to take necessary steps to obtain entry of decree of dissolution and to respond to client’s pertinent inquiries, and failure to pay sums due United States in another personal injury action warranted disbarment); Matter of Mendell, 693 S.W. 2d 76 (Mo. banc 1985) (misappropriation of client’s funds received in settlement of personal injury case warranted disbarment); In re Sabath, 662 S.W.2d 511 (Mo. banc 1984) (series of problems with clients compounded by severe personal problems, in absence of evidence of dishonorable conduct or of seeking self-enrichment at expense of others, warranted indefinite suspension); In re Lang, 641 S.W.2d 77 (Mo. banc 1982) (acceptance of employment and receipt of fee for services to be performed and subsequent failure to perform those services and failure to return the fee warranted indefinite suspension); In re Robison, 519 S.W.2d 1 (Mo. banc 1975) (personal use of money held in trust for the purpose of settling claim against client, in the absence of effort to make restitution, was ground for disbarment); In re Montrey, 511 S.W.2d 805 (Mo. banc 1974) (permitting judgment to be entered against client’s insured for amount in excess of authority, failure to inform clients of facts and misrepresentation of facts, failure to separate funds of client, and failure to perfect appeal, followed by representation to client that appeal was still pending, knowing that such representations were false, warranted indefinite suspension); In re Kueter, *26501 S.W.2d 486 (Mo. banc 1973) (willfully and knowingly failing to make an income tax return warranted an indefinite suspension); In re MacLeod, 479 S.W.2d 443 (Mo. banc 1972) (willfully and knowingly failing to make a federal income tax return rendered attorney subject to disbarment); In re Lurkins, 374 S.W.2d 67 (Mo. banc 1964) (willfully and knowingly failing to make a federal income tax return warranted indefinite suspension).