Court Opinion

ID: 9715414
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 06:05:05.520174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:23:34.896264
License: Public Domain

WILLIAM A. BABLITCH, J.
(dissenting).
“I do solemnly swear:
“I will not counsel. . . any defense, except such as I believe to be honestly debatable under the law of the land;
“I will employ, . . . such means only as are consistent with truth and honor, and will never seek to mislead the judge or jury by any . . . false statement of fact
“So help me God.”
ATTORNEY’S OATH
Without giving her an opportunity to be fully heard, the majority opinion denies Ms. Evans her day in court.1 *433The majority opinion cursorily dispenses with the important public policy considerations that exist in cases involving both attorney and client misconduct (that other courts have recognized), and simply presumes an equality of relationship between an attorney and a client. Having failed in both these respects, the majority reaches an unjust result which is contrary to sound public policy. Accordingly, I dissent.
The majority opinion, for the first time in this state, applies the doctrine of “in pari delicto” on a motion to dismiss a complaint; it applies the doctrine, for the first time reported in this state, to an attorney-client relationship; it announces the rules under which the doctrine applies; and it then tells the defendant that because her complaint fails to follow those rules, she’s out of court, she will not be heard.
The majority opinion correctly states that the doctrine of in pari delicio is subject to qualifications. P. 427, supra. When one party acts under “circumstances of oppression, imposition, hardship, undue influence, or great inequality of condition or age”, his or her guilt may be far less in degree than that of his associate *434in the offense. P. 427, supra (citing Feld & Sons v. Pechner, Dorfman, Etc., 312 Pa. Super. 125, 131, 458 A.2d 545 (1983) (quoting, Story, Equity Jurisprudence sec. 423 (14th ed. 1918)).
However, the majority then upholds the trial court’s dismissal of her complaint, asserting that Ms. Evans failed to allege any of these circumstances in her complaint. The majority concludes that “ [a] bsent some allegation of special circumstances constituting an exception to the rule of in pari delicto independent of the attorney-client relationship, the client’s deliberate act of lying under oath places that client in pari delicto with the attorney who advised the client to lie.” P. 428, supra. How was Ms. Evens to know that she was required to allege these circumstances in her complaint given the ex post facto nature of the majority’s opinion? What reason did she have, based on prior case law, to believe that she needed to allege these circumstances ? At the very least, Ms. Evans ought to be allowed to amend her complaint in order to allege circumstances that might constitute an exception to the doctrine announced today.
There is yet another reason, in equity, unmentioned by the majority, why the application of this doctrine is inappropriate at this stage of the proceeding. That reason is public policy. “[W] here there are elements of public policy more outraged by the conduct of one than of the other, then relief in equity may be granted to the less guilty.” Berman v. Coakley, 243 Mass. 348, 350, 137 N.E. 667, 669 (1923).
The public policy at stake in this case is the standard of conduct that should be demanded of an attorney to the client as well as to the public. Inasmuch as this case is before this court on a review of a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim, we must assume that Ms. Evans lied, and that in all likelihood she was under *435oath at the time. However, we also must assume that her lies were at the advice of her counsel, given to her on two separate occasions, followed by counsel’s assurances that her prevarications would not be of any consequence.
The majority would be well advised to reflect on the words of Chief Justice Rugg in Berman in which the Massachusetts court refused to apply this doctrine in a similar case involving a client suing his attorney:
“The public have a deep and vital interest in his integrity, [citations omitted] It is a matter of profound importance from every point of view that members of the bar be men of probity and rectitude, jealous to maintain relations of utmost honesty with their clients and solicitious to protect them against legal wrong. Unflinching fidelity to their genuine interests is the duty of every attorney to his clients. Public policy can hardly touch matters of more general concern than the maintenance of an untarnished standard of conduct by the attorney at law toward his client. The attorney and client do not deal with each other at arms’ length. The client often is in many respects powerless to resist the influence of his attorney. If that influence be vicious, untoward, criminal, the relation of trust is abused and becomes a source of wrong.” Id. at 354, 137 N.E. at 670-671. (Emphasis added.)
The Berman court went on to state that “ [t] he plaintiff and the [attorney] defendant were not in pari delicto. Whatever may be justly said in condemnation of the acts of the plaintiff is less than is necessary touching the acts of the [attorney] defendant”. Id. at 355, 137 N.E. at 671.
The majority’s position fails to take into account the realities of the attorney-client relationship. It overlooks the ,i very nature and “great inequality of condition” that is frequently built into the relationship by virtue of the attorney’s knowledge and the client’s trust. Ms. *436Evans alleges in her complaint that Attorney Cameron told her that she would be able to protect from bankruptcy proceedings the $10,000 in cash she possessed if she told the court that she gave the money to her mother. Attorney Cameron assured her that “no one would care”. Ms. Evans was apprehensive about lying to the court, but Attorney Cameron again advised her that “she need not worry” and that “it would not be a matter of contention anyway.” Ms. Evans’ apprehensions about lying were met with the assurances of one she trusted to know the law and to protect her interests. Despite this, the majority finds, without allowing Ms. Evans the opportunity to be fully heard, that Ms. Evans and her attorney were equally at fault. She is told by the majority that Attorney Cameron’s violations of his attorney’s oath, his violations of his duty to the court, and his violations of his duty to his client, all of which could subject him to serious disciplinary action as well as criminal prosecution, are equally as offensive as her own actions in following his advice.
By denying Ms. Evans the opportunity to be fully heard and by presuming an equality of relationship between an attorney and the client, the majority reaches an unjust result which is also contrary to sound public policy. I dissent.
(In fairness to Attorney Cameron, it is important to note that he denies all of the allegations of Ms. Evans’ complaint. However, for purposes of this action, we must assume the allegations of Ms. Evans’ complaint are true. She alleges that on two occasions Attorney Cameron advised her to lie in a bankruptcy matter.)
I am authorized to state that CHIEF JUSTICE NATHAN HEFFERNAN joins in this dissent.

 The majority, opinion in footnote six, disputes this statement by saying that “Ms. Evans has had three days in court; *433one in the trial court, one in the court of appeals, and one in this court.” Evans v. Cameron, majority op., p. 432, supra, n. 6. The issue, notwithstanding the protestations of the majority opinion, in the trial court, the court of appeals and in this court, is whether Ms. Evans can get into court to have her complaint fully heard. She has not had an opportunity to present her case on the merits, she has not had the opportunity to put flesh on the bones of her complaint that might indicate that Attorney Cameron’s activities were more egregious (or, as the majority says, more “immoral and illegal”) than her’s. Instead, the majority simply says, in effect, she lied, presumably under oath, and those actions are so utterly immoral and illegal that nothing Attorney Cameron could have done or said could be worse. The majority opinion may be right, it may be wrong, but until we know more we’ll never know. The majority opinion guarantees we’ll never know more.