Court Opinion

ID: 9667503
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 01:47:32.000763+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:02:14.446447
License: Public Domain

MERRILL, Justice
(dissenting):
As I understand, from the testimony and briefs, the following are some of the undisputed facts:
CHENEY DIVORCE
1. Cheney asked appellant by telephone if appellant could obtain a divorce for Cheney’s wife and appellant “responded that he could.”
2. Appellant asked Cheney to send him the property agreement between him and his wife and advised Cheney that he would have to sign “a waiver of notice in appearance” and that Cheney’s wife would have to come to appellant’s office.
3. Appellant informed Cheney that the fee would be $600.00. This figure was furnished appellant by Annette Cox, secretary to K. C. Edwards and/or J. Robert Huie, both attorneys who have been disbarred because they were in the “quickie divorce” racket.
4. In this and subsequent telephone conversations with Cheney, appellant mentioned no other attorney than himself.
5. Cheney wrote a letter to appellant about the matter and also sent the property settlement agreement.
6. Cheney received an answer and waiver from appellant, executed it and returned it with a check for $600.00 payable to appellant, along with a letter of transmittal.
7. Cheney had a telephone conversation with appellant concerning the arrangements for Cheney’s wife to come to Alabama.
8. Cheney’s wife came to Birmingham and went to appellant’s office. Appellant escorted her to the office of J. Robert Huie and introduced her to the secretary, Annette Cox.
9. Appellant took Mrs. Cheney to Annette Cox for the purpose of obtaining a divorce.
10. Appellant handed the check for $600.00 to Annette Cox, who requested him to take the check to the bank and bring her the cash. Appellant complied with this request.
11. Annette Cox typed the decree, it was sent to the Winston County Circuit Court, In Equity, and the signed decree was mailed to Mrs. Cheney.
SCHAFFERT DIVORCE
1. John J. Barta, a Massachusetts attorney, asked appellant in a telephone conversation about getting a divorce for his client, Mrs. Schaffert, and appellant said he would send Barta an answer and waiver.
2. Appellant told Barta the attorney’s fee would be $600.00.
3. Barta received a letter from appellant which recited as follows:
“Dear John:
I am enclosing an Answer and Waiver which should be signed by the proposed respondent. You need not have this Answer and Waiver notarized, but I would appreciate it if you would witness the waiver yourself in your office. When this is signed you may get in touch with *381me and let me know when the party can appear in my office.
It was certainly a pleasure hearing from you, and if I can be of further service to you, please call me.
Yours very truly
R. B. Jones”
4. Barta returned the executed answer and waiver to the appellant with a check in the sum of $600.00 payable to the appellant accompanied by a letter of transmittal dated February 20, 1969.
5. Barta had another telephone conversation with the appellant and set up the appointment for his client.
6. In that telephone conversation, the appellant told Barta that the client would not have to remain in Alabama more than one day.
7. Mrs. Schaffert went to the office of the appellant in Birmingham and returned to her home in Massachusetts the same day.
8. Upon arrival at appellant’s office, a secretary took Mrs. Schaffert to another office in the building where a discussion was had with someone else and a secretary, and Mrs. Schaffert signed some papers.
9. In neither of the above telephone conversations did the appellant mention any attorney other than himself as the attorney to handle any proposed divorce.
10. The answer and waiver and $600.00 check were received in the office of the appellant and delivered to Annette Cox.
11. Annette Cox requested appellant to cash the check and bring her the cash. The appellant complied with this request.
12. Mrs. Schaffert received in the mail a certified copy of a divorce decree.
Title 46, § 25, Code 1940, provides in part that this court may review the action of the board of commissioners, “and may, on its own motion, and without the certification of any record, inquire into the merits of the case and take any action agreeable to their judgment.”
In reviewing disbarment or suspension proceedings, this court possesses inherent power as well as specific statutory authority to take such action as is agreeable to our judgment; and we may adopt the findings of the commissioners or may alter or modify them. Ex parte Newton, 265 Ala. 650, 93 So.2d 164; Ex parte Cooke, 263 Ala. 481, 83 So.2d 195; Ex parte Grace, 244 Ala. 267, 13 So.2d 178; Ex parte Thompson, 228 Ala. 113, 152 So. 229, 107 A.L.R. 671; Tit. 46, §25.
Pursuant to the above authorities, I do not care to have any judge, attorney or layman in Alabama to think that I would hold, under these facts that appellant did not “aid in the filing or prosecution of any” divorce suit in a court in Alabama with knowledge or reasonable cause to believe that neither party to such cause was a bona fide resident of the State of Alabama, especially where, as here, appellant admitted that he knew that the parties in both of these cases were not residents of Alabama.
In this day when technicalities are to be avoided, it appears that the punishment proposed by the Board of Commissioners of the Alabama State Bar is set aside on the technicality that the attorney-client relationship did not exist between appellant and Mrs. Cheney in that “quickie divorce” and appellant and Mrs. Schaffert in her “quickie divorce.”
Appellant is a qualified attorney and he knew he was aiding in getting a “quickie divorce,” and even permitted himself to be the conduit for the delivery of the $600.00 fee in each case so that the signature of a qualified lawyer would appear on the check as endorser rather than a disbarred attorney who had no right to practice law in the courts of this state.
I respectfully dissent.
COLEMAN, HARWOOD and BLOOD-WORTH, JJ., concur.