Iannaccone v. Law

• Decision Date: 27 April 1998
• Docket Number: Docket No. 97-6045
• Citation: 142 F.3d 553
• Parties: William G. IANNACCONE, Estate of Peter Iannaccone, Deceased, by William G. Iannaccone, Administrator and Claimant, Plaintiff-Counter-Defendant-Appellant, v. Marie LAW, Former "Custodian" of SSA Funds payable for Peter Iannaccone, Defendant-Counter-Claimant-Appellee, John J. Callahan, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 553

142 F.3d 553

William G. IANNACCONE, Estate of Peter Iannaccone, Deceased by William G. Iannaccone, Administrator and Claimant, Plaintiff-Counter-Defendant-Appellant, v. Marie LAW, Former "Custodian" of SSA Funds payable for Peter Iannaccone, Defendant-Counter-Claimant-Appellee John J. Callahan, Acting Commissioner of Social Security Defendant-Appellee.

Docket No. 97-6045.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Submitted Oct. 30, 1997.

Decided April 27, 1998.

William G. Iannaccone, Cheektowaga, NY, pro se.

Sandra M. Grossfeld, Assistant Regional Counsel, New York City (Barbara L. Spivak, Chief Counsel, Region II, Arthur J. Fried, General Counsel, Office of the General Counsel, Social Security Administration, New York City; Patrick H. Nemoyer, United States Attorney, Western District of New York, Buffalo, NY), for Defendant-Appellee Commissioner of Social Security.

John Richard Streb, Kenmore, NY, for Defendant-Counter Claimant-Appellee Marie Law.

Before: CARDAMONE, WALKER, and JACOBS, Circuit Judges

CARDAMONE, Circuit Judge:

This appeal is from a January 23, 1997 order of the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (Skretny, J.), dismissing without prejudice an action brought by plaintiff William G. Iannaccone, appearing pro se, as administrator of his father's, Peter Iannaccone's, estate. The action consists of two claims. The first claim seeks judicial review of a final decision of the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration (Commissioner) that denied social security benefits to which plaintiff claims his father was entitled during his lifetime. The second claim seeks damages from Marie Law, who was a custodian of the deceased, for her alleged conversion of the decedent's social security checks.

The district court dismissed both claims because the plaintiff administrator, a non-lawyer, purported to provide legal representation for the decedent's estate. The issue before us on this appeal is whether plaintiff may appear pro se with respect to both claims. Because the answer regarding each claim is different, it will be helpful to the explanation to examine the subject of pro se representation in civil actions.

BACKGROUND

A. Family History

We turn first to the facts. William G. Iannaccone, the pro se plaintiff and appellant in this case, is the sole surviving child of Peter and Mamie Iannaccone. The father, Peter, was born on March 2, 1911 and the mother, Mamie, was born on March 30, 1918. They were married in 1938. The father served in the armed forces of the United States during World War II and returned to civilian life in 1944 with a service-connected mental disorder disability. The couple separated that year, but never divorced. As a result of his disability, Peter Iannaccone was involuntarily confined to a Veterans Administration psychiatric hospital in Canandaigua, New York.

In October 1976, Mamie filed an application for disability insurance benefits, which was granted. Peter filed an application for retirement insurance benefits on his own social security account in November 1976, at age 65. His application was denied based on a determination that he did not have sufficient covered quarters of earnings under the law to meet the insured status requirement necessary to be entitled to retirement benefits.

B. Administrative Proceedings

Mamie Iannaccone died on October 15, 1978. After her death, an application was filed in February 1979 for the lump sum death benefit on her social security account. Social security records show that a $255 lump sum death benefit was paid to her husband in March 1979.

After Peter's death on April 20, 1992, William Iannaccone, the 46-year-old plaintiff, was granted letters of administration upon his father's estate on November 5, 1992.

On April 23, 1992 plaintiff, as administrator of his father's estate, filed a claim with the Commissioner for amounts due his father as widower's insurance benefits on Mamie's account. The Commissioner approved payment of benefits to plaintiff on August 16, 1992, but only with respect to benefits owed for the six months immediately preceding the April 1992 application. Plaintiff requested reconsideration of the matter, asserting that his father's entitlement should be retroactive to 1976, when he attained age 65 and became eligible to receive those benefits. The administrative law judge (ALJ) conducted a hearing, considered the case de novo and, on August 18, 1994, deemed decedent to have filed an application for widower's insurance benefits on January 25, 1984. Accordingly, the ALJ directed the agency to redetermine the past-due benefits to which he was entitled. The decision of the ALJ became the final decision of the Commissioner when the Appeals Council denied plaintiff's request for review on May 9, 1995. Plaintiff then sought review of the Commissioner's order in the district court.

C. Judicial Proceedings

Peter Iannaccone received a 100 percent lifetime service-connected disability pension In July 1995 plaintiff filed a complaint in the district court seeking damages from Marie Law, decedent's sister-in-law, for alleged conversion of social security benefits payments made to decedent. In that same complaint, plaintiff also sought review of the Commissioner's order, as discussed above.

from the Veterans Administration beginning in 1944. In 1960 a New York court declared him legally incompetent. Although no committee was appointed for him at that time, his wife apparently oversaw the management of his property and income until her death in 1978. Mamie Iannaccone's sister, Marie Law, was named the executrix of Mamie's estate. Plaintiff alleges that Marie Law thereafter exercised control over plaintiff's father's property and income. In 1983 and 1984 plaintiff claimed Mamie Law misused and embezzled Peter's funds, and he therefore petitioned the court for appointment of a committee for his father. In June 1984 the court appointed a committee of the person and property of Peter Iannaccone.

By order dated November 14, 1996 the district court ruled that pursuant to N.Y. Jud. Law § 478 (McKinney's 1983), a natural person cannot appear for a person other than himself in a court of record without having been admitted to the practice of law. The district court judge stayed the action and sua sponte ordered plaintiff to obtain counsel to represent the estate in the action before January 15, 1997. The order also provided that, should plaintiff fail to obtain counsel, his complaint would be dismissed without prejudice, so that plaintiff could refile the action again whenever an attorney was prepared to present the estate's case. When plaintiff failed to obtain counsel, the district court, by order dated January 23, 1997, dismissed the case without prejudice. A judgment was entered accordingly on January 24, 1997. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

I

A. Right of Self-Representation Generally

Before turning to the merits of whether plaintiff is entitled to appear pro se in this civil proceeding, we think it helpful to discuss the general right of self-representation. The right to proceed pro se in civil actions in federal courts is guaranteed by 28 U.S.C. § 1654, which provides: "In all courts of the United States the parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel as, by the rules of such courts, respectively, are permitted to manage and conduct causes therein." Section 1654's guarantee derives directly from the Judiciary Act of 1789. First introduced in the Senate on June 12, 1789 as part of Senate Bill [S-1], the right to self-representation appeared in section 31 of the Bill. But when the Bill became law, on September 24, 1789, the right was moved to section 35, which reads as follows: "That in all the Courts of the United States the Parties may plead and manage their own causes personally or by the assistance of such Counsel or Attorneys at law as by the rules of the said Courts respectively shall be permitted to manage and conduct causes therein." V Documentary History of the First Federal Congress of the United States of America 1789-1791 1150, 1165, 1193 (1986). As can be seen, the right to self-representation has remained constant for over 200 years.

The framers of our Constitution thought self-representation in civil suits was a basic right that belongs to a free people. Although the Supreme Court alluded to civil pro se representation in Faretta v. California, 422 U.S. 806, 812-13, 95 S.Ct. 2525, 2529-30, 45 L.Ed.2d 562 (1975), the Court there focused its discussion on the right to represent oneself as a defendant in a criminal case, id. at 813, 95 S.Ct. at 2530 et seq., which the Constitution's Bill of Rights guarantees. In a criminal prosecution, a pro se party of course may only appear as a defendant. In a civil case, a person may appear pro se as either a plaintiff or defendant. And, as noted, the right of self-representation in one case is protected by the Constitution, and in the other, simply by statute. Further, in contrast to criminal defendants, civil litigants unable to afford counsel cannot ordinarily obtain appointment of counsel, except Moreover, the historical origins of self-representation in civil and criminal proceedings are different. In Faretta the Court discussed the historic requirement of having counsel, going back to the infamous English Star Chamber that forced counsel upon an unwilling defendant in a criminal proceeding, and the requirement's gradual reform. This reform was fervently embraced in colonial America for those accused of crime. See Faretta, 422 U.S. at 821-26, 95 S.Ct. at 2534-37.

in circumstances when there is a risk of loss of liberty, as in mental commitment or juvenile delinquency proceedings. See H.B. Kim, Note, Legal Education For the Pro Se Litigant: A Step Towards a Meaningful Right to Be Heard, 96 Yale L.J. 1641, 1646-47 (1987).

B. History of Self-Representation in Civil Litigation

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