Bossov, In re

• Decision Date: 24 March 1975
• Docket Number: No. 46403,46403
• Citation: 328 N.E.2d 309,60 Ill.2d 439
• Parties: In re Samuel V. BOSSOV, an attorney, Respondent.
• Court: Illinois Supreme Court

Page 309

328 N.E.2d 309

60 Ill.2d 439

In re Samuel V. BOSSOV, an attorney, Respondent.

No. 46403.

Supreme Court of Illinois.

March 24, 1975.

Rehearing Denied May 29, 1975.

Albert E. Jenner, Jr., Theodore R. Tetzlaff, and Holland C. Capper, Chicago, for respondent.

John F. McCarthy, Chicago, for Amicus curiae Board of Managers of the Chicago Bar Association.

WARD, Justice.

A division of the Committee on Grievances of the Chicago Bar Association sitting as commissioners of this court under our former Rule 751, Ill.Rev.Stat.1973, ch. 110A, § 751 recommended that Samuel V. Bossov, the respondent, be discharged from the practice of law. The complaint against the respondent, which had been filed by the Committee on Inquiry of the Chicago Bar Association, had charged him with soliciting personal injury claims, failing to account properly and pay over amounts due clients on settlements reached and with settling cases without having consulted with the clients. When the proceeding was referred to the full Committee on Grievances, that committee recommended that the sanction against the respondent be changed to suspension from practice for a period of five years. The Board of Mangers of the Association then considered the record in the proceeding and has recommended to this court that the respondent be suspended for three years.

Bossov contends before us that the findings in the disciplinary proceeding were not sufficiently proved; that the participation of agents of the American Insurance Association in the investigation requires that the complaint against him be dismissed; and also that because of the unreasoanble delay in the proceeding the complaint should be dismissed.

In a disciplinary proceeding the charges must be proved by clear and convincing evidence (In re Moore, 8 Ill.2d 373, 379, 134 N.E.2d 324) and findings made in the proceeding are entitled to virtually the same weight as the findings of any initial trier of facts in our judicial system (In re Broverman, 40 Ill.2d 302, 306, 239 N.E.2d 816). The credibility of witnesses is a question for the commissioners who hear and observe the witnesses. In re Lingle, 27 Ill.2d 459, 467, 189 N.E.2d 342.

We cannot accept the contention that the findings of improper conduct made in the disciplinary proceedings were not supported by clear and convincing evidence.

As to the charge that the respondent solicited personal injury claims, the Committee on Grievances stated that 'the charges of solicitation and procurement in Counts IV, VII, VIII, IX and X and the evidence produced in connection therewith show a pattern of comprehensive solicitation and procurement of personal injury claims by and on behalf of respondent.'

The evidence to support the charges in count IV showed the client had been released from the hospital at about 5 or 5:30 p.m. following an accident which had occurred between 3 and 4 o'clock in the afternoon. That evening someone phoned the client's home and later a man came to her house and left the respondent's professional card. Regarding count VII, the client testified that the respondent approached her and her son when they were leaving the hospital and asked if he could represent them in their claims. She had never heard of the respondent. That evening the respondent and another man appeared at her home and asked to represent her and her son in their claims.

The client concerned in count VIII of the complaint testified that following an automobile accident in which he wa involved the investigating police officer suggested that he would be able to get a 'newer car' if he employed the respondent. That evening, the client testified, representatives of the respondent called on him and left the respondent's card. He also testified that the respondent referred him to a physician and advised him to tell the physician that he had been injured.

The client referred to in count IX testified that in the evening following an accident in which he was involved an unknown man came to him and recommended the respondent as an attorney. He gave the respondent's professional card to the client, who had never heard of the attorney. When he spoke with the respondent he told him 'I feel all right,' but the respondent told him, he testified, to go to see the same physician named in the evidence supporting the charge in count VIII and suggested that the client stay away from work to improve his case.

The client concerned in count X testified that a man came to his house the day after an accident in which the client was involved and recommended the respondent's services. He gave the client the respondent's card and had him sign a retainer agreement. When the client visited the respondent as his office, the argument he had signed was on the respondent's desk.

Prior to their accidents the clients in counts IV, VII, VIII, IX and X did not know the respondent and had never heard of him.

In his testimony at the disciplinary proceedings the respondent stated he did not remember how the clients concerned in these counts came to him and his files did not indicate the circumstances of his being retained by them.

We consider the evidence of solicitation satisfied the requirement that it be clear and convincing. The respondent's argument that there was no evidence that the respondent had employed anyone to solicit injury claims for him or that he had paid anyone to do so does not persuade. We consider that the evidence of solicitation, though mostly circumstantial, was convincing. What we said in In re Krasner, 32 Ill.2d 121, 127, 204 N.E.2d 10, 13, under resembling circumstances, is applicable here:

'Anchoring his argument to the frequently expressed principle that charges in a disciplinary proceeding must be sustained by clear and convincing proof (E.g. In re Donaghy, 402 Ill. 120, 124,) respondent contends there is no proof that Vogele, Skidmore or any other person actually solicited any cases, or that respondent had any knowledge they were doing so, and as a consequence no evidence that business was ever solicited by respondent or by others in his behalf. His theory seems to be that without direct testimonial evidence of solicitation, either by Vogele or Skidmore or the persons solicited, the proof against him is neither clear nor convincing. We do not agree. Circumstantial evidence is legal evidence and neither the commissioners nor this court are requied to be naive or impractical in appraising an attorney's conduct.'

As to the charges that Bossov failed to account for and pay over amounts due clients in the settlements, the Committee stated that the charges in counts, I, II, III, IV and VII showed a pattern of the respondent's settling claims without proper explanation or accounting to his clients. It was stated, too, there were irregularities in the accountings by the respondent and that in one instance a client was induced to file a false statement to conceal that the client had been shortchanged in a settlement distribution.

In count I there were two clients concerned, Lancaster and Robinson. Two settlements were invovled, one for $3,000 and one for $1,000. An insurance company draft was made payable to Lancaster, Robinson and the respondent for $3,000, and a draft by a different insurance company in the amount of $1,000 was made payable to Lancaster, his wife and the respondent. The fee arrangement between Bossov and the clients was that he would be entitled to one third of any settlement as attorney's fees. Robinson received only $300 from the settlement and Lancaster received payments of $50, $35, $400, $200 and $400 from the respondent as his share of the settlements. The respondent had told Lancaster that the first settlement was for $1,000 when in fact it was for $3,000. The $200 and the second payment of $400 that Lancaster received from the respondent were gotten after Lancaster received a letter from the insurance company stating that the settlement had been for $3,000. Lancaster went with his former employer to the respondent's office and confronted him with the letter. The respondent gave Lancaster $200 in cash and told him not to return. However, the respondent later paid Lancaster an additional $400. Bossov testified that he did not know and did not have any record of what he had paid Lancaster.

The case of the client involved in count II was settled for $350. The respondent sent the client a check for $100, although the client had never authorized the settlement and had never signed a release or authorized its being signed. The respondent had filed his attorney's lien notice for 33 1/3 percent with the insurance company, and the client, of course, was entitled to two thirds of the settlement. The respondent's statement in his defense that the client wanted only $100 and that he was agreeable to the attorney's retaining all in excess of that amount is irrelevant and professionally offensive.

The testimony of the client concerned in count III was that he received $300 in cash from the respondent and also small advances not in excess of a total of $20. He never received an accounting from the respondent. The settlement involved was $950. Respondent denied that he had given the client $300 in cash and exhibited his check made payable to the client in the amount of $587. The respondent testified that the cashed the check for the client but he didn't recall how much money was given the client.

In count IV there was a settlement of $2,400 for a woman and a $300 settlement for her minor daughter. The client testified that neither she, her daughter nor her husband had seen the insurance company's settlement draft and that she had not received any accounting from the respondent. She said she had endorsed a check which the respondent had made payable to her order but that she had not seen the face of the check. The check was for $1,700. The respondent gave her nine $100 bills after she had endorsed it. She testified that after an...