Court Opinion

ID: 9794208
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:01:19.921537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:11:28.839411
License: Public Domain

*643Springer, J.,
dissenting:
It is alarming to me that Imperial Palace, guilty of the kinds of wrongdoing attributed to its management, should be successful in having Mr. Cronin eliminated as counsel in this case. Imperial Palace claims no prejudice that might result from Mr. Cronin’s continuing as counsel in this case and paradoxically must rest its case on the collateral claim of Mr. Cronin’s wickedness in violating our rule, SCR 182.
The severance of the attorney-client relationship, the denial to Mr. Cronin’s clients of the right to counsel of their choosing, does not seem to me to bear any relationship to what, by all accounts, was at worst an unintentional violation of our rule. Aside from the interests of the clients in this case, it does not seem to me that summary removal of counsel for the plaintiffs in this case is an appropriate penalty to be imposed upon the attorney given even the worst possible interpretation of his conduct in this case.1
Rather than sever the attorney-client relationship in this case, thereby punishing both client and attorney, I would simply refer the matter to the Bar. If Mr. Cronin is claimed to be guilty of an unintentional rule violation, it should be dealt with in the same manner as other ethical and disciplinary matters are dealt with. To allow the trial court’s order to stand is, to my mind, to permit a great and regrettable injustice to both Mr. Cronin and his clients.

 We cannot be blind to the fact that removal of Mr. Cronin as counsel in this case will very probably result in a loss to him of fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Such a “fine” is painful indeed as a consequence for Mr. Cronin’s receiving information about Imperial Palace’s attempt to corrupt the judicial system. Also, it does not seem fair to me that Mr. Cronin should be punished at the behest of Imperial Palace. The wrongdoer goes unpunished; the discoverer of the wrongdoing is punished by being removed from the case. This is not right.