Committee on Professional Ethics and Conduct of Iowa State Bar Ass'n v. Iverson, 93-651

• Decision Date: 22 September 1993
• Docket Number: No. 93-651,93-651
• Citation: 505 N.W.2d 494
• Parties: The COMMITTEE ON PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND CONDUCT Of the IOWA STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, Complainant, v. Yale H. IVERSON, Respondent.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

Page 494

505 N.W.2d 494

The COMMITTEE ON PROFESSIONAL ETHICS AND CONDUCT Of the IOWA STATE BAR ASSOCIATION, Complainant, v. Yale H. IVERSON, Respondent.

No. 93-651.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Sept. 22, 1993.

Norman G. Bastemeyer and Charles L. Harrington, Des Moines, for complainant.

Yale H. Iverson, pro se.

Considered en banc.

SNELL, Justice.

This lawyer disciplinary case was brought against respondent, Yale Iverson, for abandoning his representation of clients without notice to them. The Grievance Commission of the Supreme Court of Iowa found violations of our disciplinary rules of professional conduct and ethical conduct standards and recommended a license suspension of six months. Our review of this matter is de novo. Committee on Professional Ethics & Conduct v. Steele, 414 N.W.2d 108, 109 (Iowa 1987).

Yale Iverson's license to practice law in Iowa was under suspension when the present charges were brought. The charges were filed by the Committee on Professional Ethics and Conduct in 1992 but largely pertained to conduct that occurred in 1987. Three acts formed the basis for the charges.

Barbara Feldman employed Yale Iverson to seek redress for a claimed wrongful discharge from her employment at a hospital. She paid Iverson $2000 as an initial payment for attorney fees and expenses. She signed an attorney compensation agreement that stated the advanced money "was not to be repaid to the client in any event." In addition to consulting with the client, Iverson's entire legal representation consisted of writing one letter to the hospital asking for a response to his client's claim. No out-of-pocket expenses are shown. No response from the hospital or additional contacts appear to have been made. Feldman made numerous unsuccessful attempts to contact Iverson to learn the status of her case. Her telephone calls to Iverson were not answered and were never returned. After four months passed, she learned by contacting Iverson's wife that Iverson had closed his office in Des Moines and moved to Maryland. He had transferred her case to a lawyer in Des Moines whom she did not know and did not employ. The transfer was without notice to Feldman and was unauthorized.

Iverson similarly failed to notify another client of his discontinued law practice. Walter Kalen had employed Iverson to represent him on matters of dispute arising out of his divorce. A question arose about whether he had a common-law marriage and whether he owed back child support. His wife claimed $30,000 in back child support arising from a 1980 divorce decree. Walter Kalen disputed the claim because he had provided child support for years after the divorce during the time he again lived with his wife. When a support order issued, Kalen employed Iverson to prepare a motion to quash. Kalen spent three hours with Iverson giving him information for the motion and paid Iverson $1000. Iverson assured Kalen that the motion would be filed the next morning.

One week later Kalen checked at the Polk County Clerk's Office and learned that nothing had been filed. He found Iverson's law office closed and learned, after inquiry, that Iverson was gone for the summer, and all of his records were in storage. Kalen was unaware of Iverson's acts.

Kalen then hired another attorney at additional expense, who resolved his legal problems in four or five weeks. Before this happened, money was withheld from five of Kalen's paychecks and his income tax refund was attached.

The third ground for disciplinary sanction is based on Iverson's failure to respond to disciplinary authorities' notices. Multiple attempts were made by the committee to serve notices by certified mail on Iverson. The commission found that it mattered not if Iverson purposely evaded service because he unquestionably received two notices on January 25, 1992. Those notices notified him of possible ethical violations and requested a responsive statement. Iverson never responded to these notices or to the committee in any fashion.

Yale Iverson appeared at the commission hearing to represent himself. He did not testify regarding the charges against him, electing to show his defense by cross-examination of witnesses and legal argument. He denies any fault regarding his representation of Barbara Feldman, believing the $2000 fee she paid was "used up." Iverson notes that Feldman ultimately gave up her claim after consulting with the successor lawyer and suffered no prejudice from Iverson's actions. In any event, Iverson argues that Feldman agreed in writing that the $2000 fee would not be returned "in any event." The commission rejected these defenses and so do we. The $2000 fee was reimbursed to Barbara Feldman by the Client Security Trust Fund, which is funded by Iowa lawyers in order to reimburse clients who have suffered financial losses due to their own lawyer's transgressions. Iverson claims he was unaware of the proposed payment until after it was made, disputes its need, and has not repaid the commission.

Iverson's cross-examination of Barbara Feldman reveals his approach to the task of representing her was based on his idea that the case would be settled and it would take only a few letters to do it. He thought this followed from the fact that other hospital employee discharge cases settled. The evidence indicates Iverson wrote only one letter to the hospital. Any other legal work by Iverson, if performed at all, was miniscule. He made no accounting of his work to Feldman and offered none. Certainly, the fee advanced was not "used up." Nor does the written language of the compensation agreement form--that the fee would not be returned "in any event"--bar a claim by Barbara Feldman. That language must obviously be conditioned on the performance of a reasonable amount of work by the lawyer. It is not a trick phrase allowing a lawyer to take a client's money, do little, quit, and then claim a satisfaction of the bargain. Iverson's suggestion that this language freed him from further obligation to Feldman bares a woeful misunderstanding of the professional obligation owed by a lawyer to the client. Iverson's argument that Feldman had no case anyway and therefore suffered no prejudice is an equally fatuous idea. Whether a case result ultimately benefits a client does not provide an excuse for a lawyer's failure to practice law on his client's behalf.

We find as did the commission that Iverson's conduct in representing Barbara Feldman violated several professional standards. Canon 4, EC 4-2 was violated by referring ...