Discipline of Peters, Matter of

• Decision Date: 26 August 1988
• Docket Number: No. C2-86-1468,C2-86-1468
• Citation: 428 N.W.2d 375
• Parties: In the Matter of the Application for the DISCIPLINE OF Geoffrey PETERS, an Attorney at Law of the State of Minnesota.
• Court: Minnesota Supreme Court

Page 375

428 N.W.2d 375

In the Matter of the Application for the DISCIPLINE OF Geoffrey PETERS, an Attorney at Law of the State of Minnesota.

No. C2-86-1468.

Supreme Court of Minnesota.

Aug. 26, 1988.

As Amended Oct. 19, 1988.

Keith E. Roberts, Sr., Wheaton, Ill., for appellant.

William J. Wernz, Director, Betty M. Shaw, Asst., Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility, St. Paul, for respondent.

Heard by YETKA, SIMONETT, COYNE, POPOVICH and FALLON KELLY, ^* JJ., and considered and decided by the court en banc.

PER CURIAM.

These proceedings are before the court on the petition of the Director of the Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility for disciplinary action against respondent Geoffrey Peters, a lawyer charged with professional misconduct. The matter was referred to the Honorable Paul G. Hoffman, Judge of the District Court, for hearing and for findings and a recommendation of appropriate disposition. The petition alleged and the referee found that respondent, then dean of William Mitchell College of Law, repeatedly engaged in unwelcome physical contact and verbal communication of a sexual nature against four women employees, two of whom were also law students. The referee concluded that respondent's conduct adversely reflects on his fitness to practice law in violation of DR 1-102(A)(6) and recommended a public reprimand. We agree with the referee's conclusion and adopt his recommendation.

The principal thrust of respondent's defense goes to the sufficiency of the evidence. The argument is not particularly directed toward the quantum of the evidence, but rather consists of (1) respondent's continued denial that some of the events took place, (2) his insistence that his conduct was misunderstood by "overly sensitive" individuals, and (3) a concerted attack on the veracity of the employees and one disinterested witness. The credibility argument revolves in large part about the failure of these employees to confront respondent or to complain immediately to some other member of the law school administration. We are of the opinion, however, that the evidence adequately supports the referee's findings that the conduct in fact occurred, that it was reasonably perceived as sexual in nature, and that it was unwelcome and created an hostile and offensive work and education environment.

1. Joan Peterson was a Carleton College graduate who worked for a time before entering law school. At the time of the hearing in this matter she was an attorney in the office of a county public defender. She began law school in August 1982 and shortly thereafter was engaged as a research assistant for the respondent and for Associate Dean Melvin Goldberg.

The referee found that on four or five occasions between November 1982 and March 1983, respondent approached Peterson from behind, put his hands around her waist and squeezed it or pulled her sideways into his body. These incidents all occurred in the dean's suite at the college.

Peterson testified that following the first incident, to which she responded by firmly removing respondent's hand and attempting to put some distance between them, she began wearing more business-like clothes--suits and high-collared shirts--instead of the casual attire of many student researchers, because she wanted to make sure that she was not doing anything to encourage this type of behavior.

The referee found that in March 1983, while Peterson was conversing with a professor in the hallway at the college, respondent walked up to Peterson from behind, placed his hand on the back of her head, ran his fingers through her hair and down to her waist, letting his hand come to rest on the small of her back. The professor described the gesture as the kind of familiar contact appropriate between two people who had a close physical relationship. Because the gesture made the professor uncomfortable, as if he were interrupting some sort of intimate contact between Peterson and the respondent, and because Peterson appeared flustered, the professor walked away. A few days later Peterson apologized to the professor for the incident, explaining that she did not want him to get the wrong impression that she had a personal relationship with the dean.

The referee also found that in the spring of 1983 respondent put his hands on Peterson's waist and pulled her into his body and against a file cabinet in the office of respondent's administrative assistant. Respondent then asked if Peterson was returning to work for him in the fall.

In her testimony, Peterson distinguished between an unobjectionable brief touch on the arm or pat on the shoulder in the course of a discussion on a research project and the offensive and unwelcome touching of her waist and rib cage. Peterson testified that in response to respondent's physical contacts she froze up, ignored the misconduct, and removed respondent's hands if he did not remove them immediately. She attempted to communicate with respondent by notes rather than by speaking to him, and she stayed near the doorway when she entered his office. When asked why she did not report any of these incidents earlier, Peterson responded as follows:

I felt that there would be strong repercussions that could potentially harm, disgrace or end my career. I was just a first-year student * * * and Dean Peters had all the power. * * * I had seen what the administration's reaction was when there were people who went to them with problems and it was generally retaliation for raising any problems, and I didn't want to become part of that. * * * I just wanted to get another job and get out without--without having to confront him directly and ruin my career.

2. Like Joan Peterson, Nancy Quattlebaum graduated from Carleton College, then worked the following year for Cargill and for a Florida construction company before entering William Mitchell College of Law. She became a member of the law review and graduated with honors in 1984. She is now an associate in a large metropolitan law firm.

She began working for the respondent as a research assistant in June 1982, after having completed two years of a four-year program. The series of incidents affecting Quattlebaum began early in her employment. Quattlebaum testified that on her first day of work respondent put his arm around her and suggested that she spend the weekend with him at the law school's retreat center to work on a project. She declined the invitation. Respondent admitted extending the invitation but claimed that other senior administrators of the college would have been at the retreat center that weekend.

The referee made no finding with respect to the invitation to the retreat center, but he found that on at least three occasions between June 1982 and May 1983, while working with Quattlebaum in his office, respondent pulled his chair against hers and leaned over into her, sitting so close to her that his knee, leg, and arm were pressed against hers. Respondent did not deny that this occurred and he acknowledged putting his arm around Quattlebaum, but he stated that it was necessitated by the need for them to review documents simultaneously.

The referee found that in December 1982, at the dean's Christmas party, respondent put his arm around Quattlebaum, pulled her to him, and rubbed his hand up and down her rib cage while they were talking to several guests. Respondent does not deny that the incident occurred, but suggests in his brief that Quattlebaum may have been overly sensitive to what was intended as an innocent gesture.

Quattlebaum's response to this course of conduct was to attempt to avoid all situations where respondent could make such advances. In particular, she tried to avoid being alone with respondent in his office by having another research assistant accompany her there. When asked why she did not report these incidents to anyone in an administrative capacity at the college until the following academic year when a faculty member asked whether she had encountered any problems while working for respondent, Quattlebaum made this reply:

Professional suicide. It would have probably ruined my career. Dean Peters was a powerful man with a lot of influential friends. I couldn't take the risk.

3. Laura Shryer was the administrative assistant to one of the associate deans. On approximately six to ten occasions between the spring of 1981 and April 1983, in the interior corridor of the dean's suite, respondent approached Shryer from behind, placed his hand high up on her rib cage underneath her breast and squeezed her ribs or rib cage, or put his hand on her shoulder and pulled her toward him into his body, or put his hand on the back of her neck, beneath her hair, squeezed her neck and the upper part of her shoulders.

4. Madeleine Wilken was the acting library director of the college. The referee found that in the fall of 1982, while they were getting coffee in the kitchen of the dean's suite, respondent remarked that Wilken did not need a sugar substitute because she had a slim figure and that respondent then squeezed Wilken's waist a few times. Later that fall, during a business conference in the dean's office, respondent commented that he was sure Wilken's "domestic abilities" kept her husband very happy.

The referee also found that in mid-winter on a pre-inspection tour of the library, respondent caressed Wilken's hair and that while they were in a janitorial closet in the basement, respondent put his hands around Wilken's waist, pulled her against his body and squeezed her waist several times.

The referee found that respondent's unwelcome touches and verbal communications substantially interfered with and created an hostile educational environment for two of the women and an hostile employment environment for all four of the women, and he concluded that these repeated physical contacts and verbal communications adversely reflected on respondent's fitness to practice law in violation of DR 1-102(A)(6)...