Court Opinion

ID: 9613879
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 04:20:37.889125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:03:32.813047
License: Public Domain

JOSEPH, J.,
specially concurring.
I agree with the result, but I believe there is a better ground. This is not a case in which a trial judge has exercised his inherent power to control the conduct of lawyers involved in litigation before him. It is a class action on behalf of a very large and ever changing class. It has every appearance of being a tactical stage in a wide-ranging strategic dispute between the Attorney General and the SED on one side and the class and its counsel on the other. The decree under review would place the trial judge in a supervisory position over the day-to-day operations of the attorneys and would predictably result in a series of individual contempt skirmishes every time a well-advised member of the class wants to avoid cooperation with SED.
Ethical standards ought not to be a general foundation for the intervention of equity and certainly not on behalf of a class. Individual members of this class have the same recourse to the disciplinary machinery as every member of the public, whether they are "clients” or simply individuals affected by misconduct. The intervention of equity is neither needed nor wise. I would hold that the trial court erred in accepting jurisdiction.