Court Opinion

ID: 9738734
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 20:01:42.394368+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:08.185692
License: Public Domain

MR. JUSTICE RYAN, specially concurring: Although I concur in the conclusion of my colleagues as to^ the sanction imposed upon the respondent, I cannot agree that his conduct in Mississippi is not thé proper subject of disciplinary action. The majority opinion finds that the respondent’s solicitation activities in Mississippi were tinged with associational values protected by the first and fourteenth amendments. I do not agree. The United States Supreme Court recently decided In re Primus (1978), 436 U.S. 412, 56 L. Ed. 2d 417, 98 S. Ct. 1893, and Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Assn. (1978), 436 U.S. 447, 56 L. Ed. 2d 444, 98 S. Ct. 1912. Both of these opinions were filed on the same day. Primus involved activities and solicitation on behalf of an association in furtherance of the ends of the assoication and did not involve any commercial solicitation of business for the financial benefit of the attorney. Ohralik, on the other hand, involved no associational activities but did involve personal solicitation by the attorney for contingent-fee contracts. The only difference between our respondent’s activities in Mississippi and those of the attorney in Ohralik is the nebulous associational relationship which the majority finds present in our case. This relationship is apparently not with Rev. Johnson’s church, nor was the solicitation to further its ends, because some of those solicited were not members of the church. The association which the majority finds renders this otherwise improper solicitation permissible is indefinitely defined as “Rev. Johnson’s community.” There is no organization in existence with which the respondent was associated. Rev. Johnson stood as a self-appointed person in the community conducting what he thought was a helpful effort. The opinion in this case fulfills the prophetic statement of Mr. Justice Rehnquist in his dissent in Primus: “And we may be sure that the next lawyer in Ohralik’s shoes who is disciplined for similar conduct will come here cloaked in the prescribed mantle of ‘political association’ to assure that insurance companies do not take unfair advantage of policyholders.” 436 U.S. 412, 442, 56 L. Ed. 2d 417, 441, 98 S. Ct. 1893, 1910. There is nothing in either Primus or Ohralik that requires that this court refrain from imposing sanction on the respondent for his solicitation in Mississippi. The majority opinion has gone far beyond the holding in Primus. The United States Supreme Court, by its holdings in the two cases cited, has defined an area of permissible solicitation and an area of impermissible solicitation. Admittedly there is a substantial undefined area between these two poles that must be charted. However this is the United States Constitution that is being interpreted. If further deviation is to be had from what has been heretofore viewed as acceptable limitations on commercial speech (solicitation of clients), the United States Supreme Court, and not this court, should define the further expanded boundaries. Otherwise the area of commercial solicitation by an attorney which we may find to be protected by the first and fourteenth amendments may subsequently be found by the United States Supreme Court to constitute conduct not falling within these constitutional protections. The majority opinion relies to a great extent upon language used by Mr. Justice Marshall and by Mr. Justice Blackmun in their concurring opinions. The language of these two justices was not concurred in by other members of the court and should not be read as an indication that the United States Supreme Court did extend the constitutional protection of commercial speech to the solicitation carried on by our respondent. Just as this concurring opinion represents only the beliefs of its author, and not the holding of the court, so also must we view the language of Mr. Justices Blackmun and Marshall.