Court Opinion

ID: 9765161
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 03:54:10.520616+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:05.929383
License: Public Domain

KELLY, Associate Judge
(concurring).
I have never understood that counsel, acting in what he considers an emergency, cannot address his problem to the court preliminarily, in an ex parte motion. Urgency, of course, does not require the trial judge to act upon demand, particularly where, as here, he properly considers the matter so substantial and of such complexity as to preclude summary action. Persistence in the face of an unfavorable ruling by the court may then subject counsel to disciplinary action. But the accusation of unethical conduct in this case stems mainly, I think, from a misunderstanding as to notice. I see nothing in the record to indicate that counsel presented the motion in a manner which intimated it had been consented to by opposing counsel.1 On the contrary, as the dissent footnotes, the typewritten words “Seen — No Objection:” had been lined out by opposing counsel and the words “received but not read with copy of the proposed order:” written in. However, in his “opinion and order” the trial judge states that “[t]he motion had not been served on the opposing counsel or party, nor had there even been notice given to opposing counsel, although there was such counsel of record.” Later, without agreeing to appellant’s version of the exact language used, he says that “[cjounsel was apprised that attempting to interject as a preliminary matter, ex parte, without notice to counsel of record, a matter which apparently involved substantial personal property rights was improper, unprofessional, and unfair to fellow members of the bar.” I agree that an attorney is not in contempt of court when he presses to answer a charge of unprofessional conduct, and I make these comments only because of the extensive treatment of the propriety of counsel’s action in the dissent.

. Despite what the dissent characterizes as vigorous opposition, the motion was ultimately granted with the consent of opposing counsel by another judge.