In re Otterness
| Citation | 232 N.W. 318,181 Minn. 254 |
| Decision Date | 26 September 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 27620.,27620. |
| Parties | In re OTTERNESS. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Minnesota (US) |
Oscar G. Haugland, of Minneapolis, John A. Burns, of St. Paul, F. E. Putnam, of Blue Earth, and Alexander Seifert, of Springfield, for appellant.
Fosnes & Rolloff, of Montevideo, for respondent.
Proceeding on complaint of the state board of law examiners for the discipline of George H. Otterness, an attorney at law, hereinafter referred to as the defendant.
1. One charge against the defendant is that he made a contract with one Chas. A. Oberg, an attorney at law of this state, for the transfer or turning over of defendant's law practice at Willmar, Minn., to Oberg. The referee found that it was in effect agreed between them that defendant should transfer to Oberg all his law business, with certain specified exceptions, and should not thereafter practice law at Willmar, and that defendant violated this contract by continuing to there practice law.
There was no written contract between the parties and what their agreement was must be gathered from conflicting oral testimony and from written correspondence between them. The evidence on this charge is not so clear or convincing, or of such a character, that we feel justified in basing thereon any conviction of serious misconduct. State Board of Examiners v. Dodge, 93 Minn. 160, 100 N. W. 684; In re Hertz, 139 Minn. 504, 166 N. W. 397. What civil liability, if any, there may be, we are not here to determine.
2. The serious accusation here presented has reference to the relation between defendant and the Kandiyohi County Bank, a banking corporation organized under the laws of this state and doing business at Willmar. This accusation is divided into three separate charges in the complaint, which will here be considered together. On March 1, 1920, defendant became cashier of the bank. He was employed at a salary of $3,000 per annum. In addition thereto he was permitted to receive and retain any attorney's fees earned by him from other parties during the time of his employment. On or about June 1, 1921, a change in the employment was made and a new agreement entered into. He was then made vice president of the bank at a salary of $4,000 per year, and, as part of his contract of employment, it was agreed that all attorney's fees earned by him thereafter, during such employment, should, when collected, be turned over to the bank as income of the bank and become its property. It was also agreed that a contingent or revolving fund of $600 should be set aside by the bank for defendant's use in paying officers' fees and expenses advanced by him for the clients in the law practice, to be returned to the bank and credited, to this fund when repaid by the clients. Defendant served under this employment until April 1, 1929. During that period the bank received as income from the law practice so carried on by defendant sums varying from $1,662.60 to $4,366.34 per year, and aggregating $24,651.15 for the entire period. During that time defendant foreclosed, as attorney, ten mortgages, five of them for the bank and five for other parties. In these foreclosure proceedings, defendant charged and taxed as disbursements therein the attorney's fees provided in each mortgage, making the regular affidavit that such fees had been earned by him as attorney in each case, and these fees were collected by him and paid over to the bank where the foreclosures were for other parties, and credited to the bank on foreclosures of its own mortgages as receipts from legal services. Defendant also conducted probate proceedings in some twelve estates and charged, and he or the bank collected, attorney's fees for his services as attorney in such matters, and such fees were paid over to the bank. Other legal services by defendant were handled in the same way, so that the bank received all...
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