Attorney Grievance Commission of Maryland v. Pattison
| Decision Date | 09 February 1982 |
| Docket Number | No. 7,7 |
| Citation | 441 A.2d 328,292 Md. 599 |
| Parties | ATTORNEY GRIEVANCE COMMISSION OF MARYLAND v. William H. PATTISON, Jr. Misc. (Subtitle BV) |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Glenn M. Grossman, Asst. Bar Counsel (Melvin Hirshman, Bar Counsel, Alan D. Krauss and Kendall R. Calhoun, Asst. Bar Counsels, Annapolis, on the brief), for petitioner.
Joseph F. Lentz, Jr., Baltimore, for respondent.
Argued before MURPHY, C. J., and SMITH, DIGGES, * ELDRIDGE, COLE, DAVIDSON and RODOWSKY, JJ.
Once again we are engaged in the very unpleasant task of disbarring an attorney. 1
Bar Counsel, acting pursuant to the provisions of Maryland Rule BV9 on behalf of the Attorney Grievance Commission, filed a petition with us seeking disciplinary action against William H. Pattison, Jr., a member of the bar of this Court since November 13, 1952. Two distinct sets of circumstances were involved, one concerning an estate and the other concerning a patent.
Relative to the estate, Bar Counsel alleged a violation of Disciplinary Rule 1-102(A)(1), (3), (4), (5), and (6); DR 6-101(A)(1), (2), and (3); DR 9-102(A) (1) and (2); and DR 9-102(B)(1), (2), (3), and (4). 2 The trial judge, to whom we referred the matter pursuant to Rule BV9 b, found Pattison violated DR 6-101(A)(1) and (3), and Code (1957, 1976 Repl.Vol.) Art. 10, § 44(a), rather than finding that Pattison violated DR 9-102(A). Bar Counsel excepted, contending that the trial judge was clearly in error when he found no violation of DR 9-102(A). We agree.
Pattison became the personal representative of the estate of Marie Wanamaker on January 22, 1974. The estate was administered under the jurisdiction of the Orphans' Court of Montgomery County. The trial judge found, "When opened, the Estate contained approximately $30,000.00 in liquid assets, with another $191,000.00 being held in trust in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company."
Pattison filed several accounts in the office of the Register of Wills of Montgomery County. None of these accounts is a model of proper estate accounting. In fact, they are sadly deficient.
On February 2, 1979, a hearing was held before Judge Joseph M. Mathias in the Orphans' Court of Montgomery County. 3 The purpose of the hearing was to determine whether the estate could be closed and whether Pattison should continue as personal representative. At the time of that hearing, the attorney who pressed for closing the estate expressed a desire to examine bank statements and checks to ascertain whether all of the cash was in the bank. This examination took place in Judge Mathias' chambers. Upon the return of Pattison and the attorney to the courtroom, the attorney said:
Pattison then said:
Judge Mathias then passed an order, pursuant to the understanding of the parties, requiring the estate to be closed within twenty days.
On February 16, 1979, Pattison addressed the following letter to Judge Mathias:
Pattison did as he promised. He sent a copy to the Attorney Grievance Commission.
A hearing was held before Judge Mathias on October 15, 1979, in order that Pattison might show cause why he should not be removed as personal representative and, as Judge Mathias put it, "(t)o determine whether or not to hold Mr. Pattison in contempt for his failure to comply with the Court's Order of February 2, 1979."
It developed, as Judge Mathias found and as the trial judge in this case found, that Pattison had paid substantial sums of money from the estate account over to himself. A total of $32,474.55 appears to have been deposited in the estate account at the Maryland National Bank in Cambridge. On January 20, 1975, Pattison drew a check to himself in the amount of $2,000.00. He claims this was an advance on commissions. Before Judge Pollitt, who heard this case under Rule BV9, Pattison said in response to the court's question as to this being an advance against commissions:
4
It developed that the total sum withdrawn by Pattison from the estate was $28,900, being as follows:
1/20/75 ... $ 2,000
2/28/75 ....... 500
4/4/75 ........ 500
5/21/75 ....... 500
7/3/75 ...... 2,500
7/21/75 ....... 800
9/5/75 ........ 400
9/11/75 ....... 500
9/19/75 ....... 600
9/19/75 ....... 200
12/12/75 ....... 400
12/12/75 ....... 400
12/12/75 ....... 100
12/24/75 ....... 500
1/13/76 ..... 1,000
1/23/76 ..... 1,000
2/23/76 ....... 500
3/4/76 ...... 1,000
5/12/76 ..... 1,000
6/6/76 ...... 1,000
9/9/76 ...... 1,500
9/28/76 ..... 1,000
11/15/76 ..... 2,000
12/3/76 ...... 2,000
12/17/76 ..... 2,000
1/11/77 ..... 1,500
4/15/77 ..... 1,000
5/6/77 ...... 1,000
5/31/77 ....... 500
6/16/77 ..... 1,000
-----
$ 28,900 The record further reflects that Pattison deposited the sum of $28,404.65 to the account of the estate at The National Bank of Cambridge on February 8, 1979, six days after the hearing before Judge Mathias.
Pattison seems to have contended throughout this matter that these sums were not peculations on his part, but were loans from the estate to him. Of course, he as personal representative would have had no authority to loan estate money to himself. Judge Mathias removed Pattison as personal representative of the Wanamaker estate, but did not hold him in contempt. The trial judge believed Pattison's statement that he had no intent whatever to deprive the owner permanently of the money involved. He said, "We have not found any 'clear and convincing' evidence to indicate that Respondent harbored any intent to steal the monies or to reduce them to his sole permanent possession," although he did find Pattison's "conduct to be an inexcusable and unjustified breach of his fiduciary obligations to the Estate and a serious invasion of the integrity of the assets of the Estate."
Pattison is an attorney admitted to practice in the U. S. Patent Office. His activities in the representation of George T. Sendall relative to a patent are the basis for the second set of charges which Bar Counsel brought in the same petition with those charges we have previously discussed. Pattison was alleged to have violated DR 1-102(A)(1), (3), (4), (5), and (6); DR 6- 101(A)(3), and DR 7-101(A)(1), (2), and (3). 5 The trial judge concluded that Pattison violated DR 6-101(A)(3) in that he was neglectful.
In that case Pattison was retained to procure a patent for Sendall on what was dubbed the "Mad Baron's Zoaring Zeppelin," a type of kite. The Patent Office ultimately regarded the patent application as abandoned for failure to file proper ink drawings. Pattison was responsible for such filing.
There was clear and convincing evidence to support the conclusion of the trial judge.
It is with a heavy heart that one considers the sanction to be imposed upon an attorney who has misused his client's funds. So often attorneys for one reason or another find themselves in a position where the flow of cash in their practice is insufficient to meet office overhead, family needs, and the like. Then comes the temptation to dip into funds which have been entrusted to the attorney, with the thought that the money soon can and will be paid back and the hope that no one will be the wiser. Often, as here, the peculations grow and grow. It is fundamental that a fiduciary may not make a loan, secured or unsecured (as was this), unto himself.
When called upon at the hearing before the Orphans' Court of Montgomery County in February 1979 to produce the bank records which would substantiate the fact that the estate's assets were properly deposited, Pattison attempted to cover up by blaming his secretary for the fact that the records were not in the file, and suggested that she had failed to take them from the safe. Yet, at that very time, he knew that...
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