Burton v. Statewide Grievance Committee, (AC 19067)

• Decision Date: 14 November 2000
• Docket Number: (AC 19067)
• Citation: 760 A.2d 1027,60 Conn. App. 698
• Court: Connecticut Court of Appeals
• Parties: NANCY BURTON v. STATEWIDE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE

60 Conn. App. 698

760 A.2d 1027

NANCY BURTON v. STATEWIDE GRIEVANCE COMMITTEE

(AC 19067)

Appellate Court of Connecticut.

Argued February 24, 2000.

Officially released November 14, 2000.

Schaller, Hennessy and Shea, JS.

Nancy Burton, pro se, the appellant (plaintiff).

Christopher G. Blanchard, assistant bar counsel, for the appellee (defendant).

Opinion

SCHALLER, J.

The plaintiff, Nancy Burton, appeals from the judgment of the trial court dismissing her appeal from the decision of the defendant, the statewide grievance committee, reprimanding her for violating rules 8.2 (a)¹ and 8.4 (4)² of the Rules of Professional Conduct. Although the plaintiff raises other issues on appeal, we address only one because it is dispositive.³ The plaintiff claims that the court improperly concluded that the defendant's procedures were proper and that the defendant afforded the plaintiff due process. We reverse the judgment of the trial court and remand the case for further proceedings.

The following facts and procedural history are relevant to our disposition of this appeal. The background of this proceeding began when the plaintiff, an attorney, wrote a letter dated December 12, 1995, to the chief justice of the Supreme Court, with copies to the other justices, requesting that the court exercise its authority pursuant to General Statutes § 51-51j⁴ to investigate the conduct of Superior Court Judges Moraghan, Stodolink and Mihalakos,⁵ and to hold a hearing thereon. On January 16, 1996, the plaintiff sent another letter to the chief justice renewing her request for a Supreme Court investigation. In a letter dated February 5, 1996, the chief justice informed the plaintiff that the Supreme Court had reviewed the materials that the plaintiff sent in support of the allegations of misconduct she made in her letter of December 12, 1995, and had decided not to invoke its statutory investigatory function. The chief justice sent copies of this letter to each of the judges whom the plaintiff accused of judicial misconduct.

On June 11, 1996, Judge Moraghan filed a grievance complaint against the plaintiff claiming that the allegations in her letter were absolutely false. On June 20, 1996, Judge Mihalakos also filed a grievance complaint against the plaintiff on the basis that the allegations in her letter were absolutely false.⁶ Thereafter, Judge Mihalakos, acting as administrative judge, assigned all cases involving the plaintiff, except for one, to Judge Stodolink.

Pursuant to Practice Book § 27F, now § 2-32, the complaints of Judges Moraghan and Mihalakos were referred to a grievance panel for the judicial district of Stamford-Norwalk on July 9, 1996, for a determination of whether there was probable cause to find that the plaintiff had violated the Rules of Professional Conduct. The plaintiff filed several responses to the grievance complaints with the grievance panel. When the panel requested documentation of her allegations of "judicial corruption," however, she provided only her own affidavit asserting that the statements in her letter to the Supreme Court were true. She did, however, write a letter dated August 19, 1996, indicating her intention to dispute the charges against her and to provide support for her claims against the judges.⁷

On or about October 8, 1996, the panel determined that there was probable cause to believe that the plaintiff had violated rules 8.2 (a) and 8.4 (4) of the Rules of Professional Conduct and notified the statewide grievance committee of its finding. Pursuant to Practice Book § 27J, now § 2-35 (a), the statewide grievance committee assigned the grievances to a reviewing committee for a hearing. The reviewing committee scheduled a hearing on the grievance complaints for February 5, 1997, and sent notice of the hearing to the parties on January 2, 1997. The notice contained two caveats: (1) "You are expected to appear at the hearing at the time and date set forth above. A request for an alternative date or time will only be considered if received in writing within seven days of the date of this letter. Said request will be granted only under extreme circumstances"; and (2) "In the event that a party does not appear, the hearing will be held and a determination will be made on the evidence and argument presented at the hearing and the record of the grievance panel." The defendant makes no claim that the caveats in the January 2, 1997 notice were grounded in any rule or regulation that the defendant has promulgated.

The plaintiff did not submit a written request for a continuance. In the week before the hearing date of February 5, 1997, however, she left a voice mail message with the office of the statewide grievance committee requesting a continuance because she was engaged in a civil jury trial before Judge Stodolink. In her message, however, the plaintiff referred to a hearing date of February 7, 1997, rather than February 5, 1997, the date specified in the notice that she had received. The attorney for the reviewing committee contacted the plaintiffs office and left a message on her office answering machine explaining that the hearing was scheduled for February 5, not February 7. On the day of the hearing, before any proceedings began, one of the complainant judges informed the reviewing committee that the plaintiff was then involved in closing arguments in a jury trial before Judge Stodolink at the Superior Court in Danbury. Nonetheless, the reviewing committee proceeded with the hearing as scheduled in the absence of the plaintiff because, as it stated in its proposed decision, she had not complied with the direction in the notice of hearing that a request for a continuance be in writing and did not communicate her telephone request accurately, resulting in inconvenience to the Superior Court judges who appeared as witnesses. At the hearing, each of the complainant judges testified that the allegations made by the plaintiff in her letter to the chief justice were false and groundless.

On February 7, 1997, upon the conclusion of the civil jury trial in which she had been engaged, the plaintiff requested in writing that the reviewing committee open the grievance hearing so that she would have an opportunity to cross-examine the two judges who had testified against her and to present her defense. The reviewing committee prepared a proposed decision in which it stated that it denied the plaintiffs request for a continuance because of her "failure ... to appropriately request a continuance in writing, or to communicate an accurate verbal request in spite of having the opportunity to do so, with the resulting inconvenience to the Superior Court judges appearing as witnesses in this matter, as well as the Complainant's request to go forward with the hearing...." In its proposed decision, the reviewing committee found that the plaintiffs allegations against the judges were untrue.⁸

On August 22, 1997, the statewide grievance committee notified the plaintiff by letter that it had decided to adopt the proposed decision of the reviewing committee and, accordingly, reprimanded the plaintiff. On August 27, 1997, the plaintiff wrote a letter to the statewide grievance committee formally requesting the committee to open the record of the grievance proceeding instituted by the two judges who had filed complaints against her because she had not had an opportunity to cross-examine them or to present contrary evidence because of her involvement in a civil jury trial at the time of the hearing. On September 19, 1997, the statewide grievance committee informed the plaintiff in a letter that it had denied her request to open the record.

Subsequently, the plaintiff appealed to the Superior Court, claiming that the committee had wrongfully deprived her of her rights to a hearing on the complaint, to confront her accusers, to cross-examine her accusers and to present evidence as a result of the denial of her request for a continuance. The court concluded that there was substantial evidence to support the conclusion of the statewide grievance committee that the plaintiff had violated rules 8.2 (a) and 8.4 (4) of the Rules of Professional Conduct by making accusations against the judges involved that she knew were false or with reckless disregard as to their truth or falsity. The trial court further found that the caveats in the hearing notice were reasonable and did not deprive the plaintiff of due process of law. The court dismissed the appeal, and the plaintiff filed an appeal with this court. The plaintiff claims that the reviewing committee violated her due process rights to a fair hearing when it conducted the hearing in her absence.

"Because a license to practice law is a vested property interest, an attorney subject to discipline is entitled to due process of law.... Accordingly, [b]efore discipline may be imposed, an attorney is entitled to notice of the charges, a fair hearing and an appeal to court for a determination of whether he or she has been deprived of these rights in some substantial manner." (Citations omitted; internal quotation marks omitted.) Lewis v. Statewide Grievance Committee, 235 Conn. 693, 705, 669 A.2d 1202 (1996). Although both our federal and state constitutional provisions establishing the right of confrontation refer only to criminal trials, the United States Supreme Court has also...