Court Opinion

ID: 9633091
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 11:33:34.423923+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:08:29.043430
License: Public Domain

MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. My colleagues in the majority make light of Appellants’ assertions regarding the conduct of Harris and his law firm (collectively, Harris), suggesting that because the economic result achieved was ultimately favorable to Appellants, and because the district court is owed discretion in whether to disgorge attorney’s fees, it is unnecessary to decide whether Harris breached the Washington Rules of Professional Conduct (RPC) and his fiduciary duties. In the words of the majority, “after all righteous furor is vented, the fees were eminently reasonable for the result produced.” Maj. Op. at 1048. In my view, Harris’s breaches of the RPC and his fiduciary duties are plain, and the majority’s conception of attorneys’ fiduciary duties is the legal equivalent of holding that a trustee who misappropriates money from a trust and gambles those funds at the racetrack is excused from his breach of fiduciary duty, and is entitled to his trustee fees, so long as he wins enough at the track to permit him to timely return the misappropriated money to the corpus of the trust. Washington law does not support such a legal theory of relativity concerning an attorney’s breach of his fiduciary duties.
Under Washington law, it is well established that “the attorney-client relationship is a fiduciary one as a matter of law and thus the attorney owes the highest duty to the client.” Perez v. Pappas, 98 Wash.2d 835, 659 P.2d 475, 479 (1983) (en banc); Versuslaw v. Stoel Rives, LLP, 127 Wash.App. 309, 111 P.3d 866, 878 (Ct.App.2005); Kelly v. Foster, 62 Wash.App. 150, 813 P.2d 598, 601 (Ct.App.1991). When acting as a fiduciary, attorneys “have a duty to act in and for the client’s best interests at all times and to act in complete honesty and good faith to honor the trust and confidence placed in them.” Kelly, 813 P.2d at 600-01 (emphasis added).
In affirming the district court, the majority relies on the district court’s conclusion that even if all of Appellants’ claims against Harris were true, Harris’s conduct was not “so egregious as to justify disgorgement of fees paid.” But neither the majority nor the district court closely examined Appellants’ claims regarding Harris’s violations of his fiduciary duties and the RPC, matters which this court reviews de novo. See Eriks v. Denver, 118 Wash.2d 451, 824 P.2d 1207, 1211 (1992) (en banc) (stating that whether an attorney’s conduct violates the relevant rules of professional conduct is a question of law); see also Lentini v. Cal. Ctr. for the Arts, 370 F.3d 837, 843 (9th Cir.2004) (stating that a district court’s conclusions of law following a bench trial are reviewed de novo).
I agree that the question of whether to disgorge fees is a matter committed to the discretion of the trial court, and that even when a breach of fiduciary duty is proven, a trial court is not necessarily required to order disgorgement. See Kelly, 813 P.2d at 602. However, if an attorney is guilty of gross misconduct in violation of public policy, the attorney may not be entitled to any fees. See Ross v. Scannell, 97 Wash.2d 598, 647 P.2d 1004, 1011 (1982) (en banc); Kelly, 813 P.2d at 601.
*1060As demonstrated below, Harris violated the RPC and his fiduciary duties to Appellants in numerous ways, some of which were egregious. Given the obvious nature of these multiple violations, some of which the district court did not consider at all, the district court “committed a clear error in judgment” in concluding that Harris did not violate the RPC or breach his fiduciary duties such that disgorgement may be appropriate, and that even if he did so his conduct was not egregious so as to warrant the disgorgement of fees. See Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n v. Nat’l Marine Fisheries Serv., 422 F.3d 782, 798 (9th Cir.2005) (stating that abuse of discretion review requires the appellate court to uphold a district court’s exercise of discretion unless the court has “a definite and firm conviction that the district court committed a clear error of judgment in the conclusion it reached”) (citation and internal quotations omitted). Instead of affirming the district court, this court should conclude that the district court abused its discretion and remand the case to the district court so that it may consider in the first instance what, if any, remedy is appropriate in light of Harris’s egregious misconduct.
A review of Appellants’ most persuasive claims reveals that Harris violated the plain language of the RPC due to the method by which he calculated the contingency fee, the invoice’s deficient explanation of how the fee was calculated, and by representing clients with conflicting interests without obtaining the requisite written consent.
First, RPC § 1.5(c)(4) provides, in relevant part, that a contingent fee “in which all or part of the recovery is to be paid in the future, shall be paid only by applying the percentage to the amounts recovered as they are received by the client.” (Emphasis added.) When Harris billed Jeffrey and Amy for a 1.5% contingency fee on October 31, 2000, the only money they had received as a result of their transaction with Tesoro (or were guaranteed to receive) was $1 million. Yet, Harris took a $142,500 contingency fee, which was based upon the sum of the $1 million Jeffrey and Amy were guaranteed to receive plus an $8.5 million option granted to Tesoro, even though the $8.5 million option was never exercised. RPC § 1.5(c)(4) is clear that no contingency fee is to be paid on a sum until payment is “received by the client,” and there is no dispute that Jeffrey and Amy never received the $8.5 million sum incorporated into the contingency fee calculation. In short, Harris took $127,500 to which he was not entitled under the RPC. That is egregious conduct by any measure and is, to my mind, little different from an attorney misappropriating money from his client trust account.
The majority would undoubtedly contend that everything worked out well overall for Appellants and, accordingly, they have no basis to complain. But that view of an attorney’s fiduciary duty ignores the plain language of the RPC and Washington case law. It also sends a message that courts need not strictly enforce the RPC against those sworn to uphold the rule of law as long as a client receives a favorable result. Moreover, it is not clear under the majority’s logic whether Harris would have been allowed to retain the fee he obtained in violation of the RPC if the results he obtained for his client were much less favorable, or how “favorable” a result must be in order to ignore a lawyer’s breach of his fiduciary duty. Similarly, the district court’s view that the contingency fee paid was, on the whole, “reasonable” given the services rendered and the results achieved was also in error. The reasonableness of the fee does not determine whether violations of the RPC occurred in the first instance. Like the majority, the district court ignores the plain language of the RPC.
*1061Second, the invoice setting forth the contingency fee was itself a violation of the RPC. RPC § 1.5(c)(3) provides that if there is recovery in a contingent fee matter, the lawyer shall provide the client a written statement of “the outcome of the matter ... showing the remittance to the client and the method of its determination.” Harris violated this rule by failing to issue a written statement showing how he calculated the contingency fee. See In re Heard, 136 Wash.2d 405, 963 P.2d 818, 824 (1998) (en banc) (holding that attorney violated RPC § 1.5(c)(1) when he failed to provide a client “with a written statement stating the outcome of the matter and ... showing the remittance to the client and the method of its determination”).
Third, the May and September 2001 corporate resolutions constitute illegal fee-splitting agreements in violation of RPC § 5.4(a). RPC § 5.4(a) prohibits a lawyer from “shar[ing] legal fees with a nonlaw-yer.” The record is clear that Harris and McPherson, a non-attorney, agreed to split the contingency fee paid under the corporate resolutions. Moreover, nothing in the record indicates that the fee was split pursuant to a pre-existing agreement between the non-attorney and the clients so as to ensure that the portion of contingency fee the non-attorney was paid corresponded with work that was nonlegal in nature. Cf. In re Marshall, 160 Wash.2d 317, 157 P.3d 859, 864-67 (2007) (en banc) (upholding a split fee where non-attorney had pre-exist-ing agreement with the client to receive 10% of the final settlement and agreement with attorney merely carried out pre-exist-ing agreement). As a result, it appears that the corporate resolutions violated the plain language of RPC § 5.4(a) and were, therefore, unenforceable. See Valley/50th Ave., L.L.C. v. Stewart, 159 Wash.2d 736, 153 P.3d 186, 189 (2007) (en banc) (“Attorney fee agreements that violate the RPCs are against public policy and unenforceable.”).1
Finally, Harris violated RPC § 1.7 by representing clients with conflicting interests without first obtaining the requisite written consent. RPC § 1.7 provides that an attorney “shall not represent a client if the representation involves a concurrent conflict of interest,” but authorizes such representation if, among other requirements, “each affected client gives informed consent, confirmed in writing.” (Emphasis added.) This requirement applies to both actual and potential conflicts of interest. See In re Marshall, 157 P.3d at 870 (“[RPC 1.7] requires full disclosure of 'potential conflicts and written consent of the client where multiple representation may materially affect the client’s case.”) (emphasis in original); In re Egger, 152 Wash.2d 393, 98 P.3d 477, 486 (2004) (en banc) (same). In this case, there was a clear potential conflict of interest when Harris, who was already representing Jeffrey, Amy and BFG in their litigation with ARCO, took on the representation of Richard and Janis Bertelsen in the same litigation. ARCO sued Richard and Janis on the basis of alleged personal guarantees on promissory notes signed by Jeffrey, Amy, and BFG. If Richard and Janis were guarantors for the debts of Jeffrey, Amy, and BFG, their interests would clearly be adverse to those of Jeffrey, Amy, and BFG since it is hornbook law that guarantors who pay the debts of third-party obligors have a claim against those obligors for the *1062amounts they pay on the guaranteed debt. Although Harris represented to Richard and Janis in a letter dated September 7, 2001 that he was not aware of any conflict “at [that] point in time,” the letter also stated Harris’ understanding that Richard and Janis “waived any conflict that may arise.” This suggests that Harris recognized a potential conflict as of September 7, 2001.
Despite this potential conflict, Harris did not obtain the written consent of each individual affected — Jeffrey, Amy, Richard or Janis — before moving forward with the representation of all of the Bertelsens, nor did he describe in writing the specific nature of the conflict he thought might arise. Moreover, Harris did not obtain any written waiver of conflicts from Richard and Janis until October 22, 2001, and the only written consent Harris ever received from Jeffrey and Amy was given in response to an October 29, 2001 letter. But that letter did not expressly state that Jeffrey and Amy’s signatures represented their consent to waive any conflicts. Rather, the letter summarized the disposition of various debts, liens, and the ongoing ARGO litigation, and requested that if the document was consistent with the Bertelsens’ understanding of the arrangements made, they were to sign and return the document. On this basis, I conclude that Harris breached his fiduciary duties by not obtaining the written consent of every client affected by his decision to undertake the representation of Richard and Janis, in violation of RPC § 1.7.
Harris’s violations of the RPC and his breaches of fiduciary duty were numerous and egregious. Accordingly, I conclude that the district court abused its discretion in concluding that Harris did not violate the RPC or breach his fiduciary duties such that disgorgement was appropriate, and that even if he did, his conduct was not egregious so as to warrant the disgorgement of fees. Thus, I would remand to the district court so that it may consider in the first instance what remedy is appropriate in light of Harris’s egregious breaches of his fiduciary duties to his clients.

. Because the September 2001 corporate resolution under which Harris collected his fee was unenforceable due to this violation of RPC § 5.4(a), I do not regard the three-year statute of limitations that applies to actions for breach of fiduciary duty, Wash Rev.Code. § 4.16.080, as a bar to this action. See In re Ocean Shores Park, 132 Wash.App. 903, 134 P.3d 1188, 1193 (Ct.App.2006) (“The statute of limitations does not apply where an act or instrument is void at its inception.”) (citations omitted).