Consumers who need protection from their lawyers dept.: “A Staten Island, N.Y., judge has ordered an attorney to return the passport of her Sri Lankan client, comparing the lawyer’s refusal to give back the passport until she is paid her fees to holding the client hostage.” It would seem that passport-withholding is by no means an unknown tactic for lawyers wishing to make sure their fees get paid; in a 1987 decision from the Southern District of New York, U.S. v. Bakhtiar, a federal court even opined that it saw that it saw “nothing unethical or shocking” about the practice. However, Civil Court Judge Philip S. Straniere in his unreported small claims opinion disagreed with the reasoning of Bakhtiar. The client in the case, who had retained the lawyer in a child custody proceeding, was named was Chandrani Goonewardene; Judge Straniere declined to release the lawyer’s name in his opinion, “instead referring to her by the pseudonym ‘Amanda Bonner.’ (Amanda Bonner is also the name of the attorney played by Katharine Hepburn in the film ‘Adam’s Rib.’)” (Mark Fass, “Judge Orders Attorney to Return Passport Held in Fee Dispute”, New York Law Journal, Aug. 23).
Posts Tagged ‘ethics’
Canadian bar’s image problems
“Lawyer sanctioned in Holocaust suit”
Yes, it’s Ed Fagan again. This time the much-publicized reparations impresario “has been hit with sanctions that will run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for his handling of a lawsuit seeking recovery from an Austrian bank of the value of artwork looted by the Nazis. Employing unusually harsh language, Southern District of New York Judge Shirley Wohl Kram assessed attorney fees against [Fagan], and also fined him $5,000, finding he had committed champerty and misled her.” (Daniel Wise, New York Law Journal, Aug. 23). For Fagan’s earlier misadventures, see Jun. 4 and many links from there.
“Law Firm Sanctioned for Forest Service Suit”
Criticize a developer, get sued for racketeering: “A Los Angeles federal judge on Monday ordered a large law firm and two of its attorneys to pay $267,000 in sanctions for filing a ‘frivolous lawsuit’ against a community activist and three Forest Service employees who opposed a luxury condominium development on Big Bear Lake.” Lawyers from the San Diego office of Foley & Lardner, acting on behalf of developer Irving Okovita, had filed a racketeering lawsuit against Sandy Steers, executive director of the Friends of Fawnskin, and two Forest Service employees who had fought the developer’s Marina Point project, which they said would disrupt bald eagle habitat. U.S. District Judge Manuel Real threw out the suit and issued the sanctions, which Foley & Lardner says it will appeal. (Henry Weinstein, Los Angeles Times, Aug. 16; “Judge rules law firm must pay $267,000 for ‘frivolous’ lawsuit”, AP/CourtTV, Aug. 16)(more background).
Mississippi verdict aftermath
As we reported Friday, a jury in the Magnolia State’s money-for-judges trial acquitted state supreme court justice Oliver Diaz Jr. of all charges, rendered not guilty verdicts on some of the charges against two of the three other defendants, and was unable to agree on verdicts in the other cases. Now Howard Bashman (Aug. 14) rounds up links to the extensive coverage of the case published in recent days in the Jackson Clarion-Ledger and Biloxi Sun-Herald.
More: According to the Sun-Herald account, after agreeing on acquitting Diaz, nine jurors wanted to convict the other defendants of some charges, but three jurors insisted on across-the-board acquittals and would not budge from that position. “What’s wrong with helping a judge?” said juror Shirley Griffin, 64. “They were all friends. It was (Paul Minor’s) money, not the government’s money. It’s his business what he does with it. (Minor) has done a lot of good things. I don’t know him but I know of him, and he’s done a lot of good. And his daddy used to have articles in the paper.” Griffin described the holdouts against conviction as “me and the two white people”, which might be considered an unexpected pattern given that, as the Sun-Herald reported, “The defense team played to a jury of 10 blacks and two whites, frequently bringing up the defendants’ support for civil rights.” And the Clarion-Ledger reports: “The U.S. attorney’s office is uncertain it will retry Minor, former Circuit Judge John Whitfield and former Chancery Judge Wes Teel on charges the jury didn’t reach a verdict on.”
Jury acquits Diaz, other charges unresolved
A Jackson jury has acquitted Mississippi Supreme Court justice Oliver Diaz Jr. of all four charges against him. “The jurors found attorney Paul Minor [and] former trial judges John Whitfield and Wes Teel innocent of some of the 17 counts and failed to return a verdict on other charges.” (Biloxi Sun-Herald, Aug. 12; Jimmie Gates, “Diaz innocent on all judicial bribery charges; no verdict reached on some charges against three others”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, Aug. 12). Specifically, it cleared attorney Paul Minor of extortion, bribery and four mail fraud counts, while failing to reach a verdict on racketeering, wire fraud and two bribery counts against him; cleared former judge John Whitfield of wire fraud, while failing to reach a verdict on bribery and mail fraud charges; and failed to reach a verdict on bribery, wire fraud or mail fraud counts against former judge Wes Teel. For our earlier coverage, see Aug. 11, Aug. 7 and links from there.
Oz: regulation of litigation finance eyed
The government of Australia’s biggest state, New South Wales, “has moved to rein in litigation-funding companies and will ask other states this week to regulate a practice which they say offers few consumer protections. The Attorney-General, Bob Debus, says the firms — which fund court cases in return for a share of any payout — are not policed in the same way as lawyers and could undermine national laws governing the profession.” Among other concerns advanced by Mr. Debus, litigation funders could be in a position to “initiate, manage and influence the running of court cases” without submitting themselves to the consumer recourse available against lawyers themselves, and “could circumvent the prohibition on lawyers charging contingency fees.” (Michael Pelly, “State seeks greater control of firms funding litigation”, Sydney Morning Herald, Jul. 26). For more on litigation finance, see Aug. 4, 2003.
Don’ts
Some don’ts for lawyers, all based on instances of judicially imposed sanctions reported recently on Law.com: don’t file a “wholly frivolous appeal” after the judge has warned you “Y’all better not come back in court anymore on this.” (George Robert Belche and Franklin H. Thornton, fined $1,000 in Georgia, as were their clients); don’t engage in “continuous and brazen” disrespect toward the court including the filing of a fraud claim “utterly barren of any scintilla of legal principles” as part of a “laundry list of unethical actions” (Philip Berg of Lafayette Hill, Pa., fined more than $10,000 and ordered to complete six hours of ethics training); don’t tell a client you’ve won $1.1 million for him in his medical malpractice case when you haven’t actually filed it (Philip Morell, formerly of Tenafly, N.J., stripped of his law license)(Scott Simonson, “Lawyers, Client Hit With $2,000 Fine for Filing Frivolous Case”, Fulton County Daily Report, Jul. 28; Shannon P. Duffy, “Lawyer Slapped With $10K in Sanctions for ‘Laundry List of Unethical Actions'”, The Legal Intelligencer, Jul. 25; Michael Booth, “Lawyer Disbarred After Telling Client Fish Story About Unfiled Case”, New Jersey Law Journal, Jul. 27).
Evan Schaeffer…
…certainly is feeding me material lately (Jul. 25).
Mississippi lawyer squabble
A reader characterizes:
I admit I get a perverse pleasure when I see the sharks feeding on each other. But this is just too good. Lawyer Luckey gets caught altering dates on asbestos claims, gets fired by Scruggs for altering the dates but then has the chutzpah to demand his cut of the contingency fee loot… and the judge gives it to him! I guess no one ever thought any disciplinary actions on anyone’s part was needed or indicated.
And it’s even sillier than that: the bulk of the damages appears to be for tobacco claims the partnership financed after Luckey was kicked out in 1993, triggering twelve years of litigation. Magistrate Judge Jerry Davis of the federal court in Oxford, Mississippi, awarded $13 million plus attorneys’ fees; the parties appear to have cut a deal so that there will be no appeal. (Leesha Faulkner (!), “Scruggs slapped with $13M settlement over partnership”, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Jul. 22). More on Richard “Dickie” Scruggs: Jun. 15, Apr. 30. This appears to be the culmination of the fight that resulted in subpoenas to the Mississippi Supreme Court over Scruggs’s alleged influence there; at the time, Scruggs pooh-poohed the allegations, arguing that the dispute was only worth a few thousand dollars, and therefore not something worth risking improper influence over. (Jerry Mitchell, “Attorney testifies in justice probe”, Jackson Clarion-Ledger, May 17, 2003; “Lawyer, Former Colleagues Dispute Fees”, AP/Biloxi Herald, Mar. 27, 1998). Alwyn Luckey represents approximately 1500 Mississippi silicosis plaintiffs, so his troubles may not be over. (Updated from Jul. 23 post.)