Louisville Bar Ass'n v. Hubbard

• Decision Date: 31 May 1940
• Citation: 282 Ky. 734
• Parties: Louisville Bar Ass'n v. Hubbard.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court — District of Kentucky

282 Ky. 734

Louisville Bar Ass'n v. Hubbard.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

February 16, 1940.

Rehearing Denied May 31, 1940.

1. Attorney and Client. — Though not in keeping with ethics of the legal profession, an attorney may personally solicit business with impunity, where he does not take advantage of the ignorance,

weakness, suffering, or human frailties of expected clients, and where no inducements are offered them.

2. Attorney and Client. — If personal solicitation of business by an attorney is accompanied by taking advantage of expected clients, or by disparaging remarks about other attorneys, or where "hospital haste" is resorted to in obtaining a contract of employment, or in filing suit before circumstances of the case and the extent of injuries can be fully known, an attorney is guilty of "unprofessional conduct" for which he may be disbarred or suspended.

3. Attorney and Client. — The breach of professional ethics by an attorney in obtaining employment through the use of employed agents or "runners" is ground for permanent disbarment or suspension of an attorney for a given period.

4. Attorney and Client. — Evidence sustained finding that attorney's personal solicitations of employment so far overstepped the bounds of propriety as to merit his suspension.

5. Attorney and Client. — Evidence sustained finding that attorney's conduct in employing a "runner" under the guise of a chauffeur merited his suspension.

6. Attorney and Client. — The alleged fact that estate, which was administered by an attorney charged with administering it for his own interest to detriment of beneficiaries, lost nothing, did not mean that attorney was not culpable.

7. Attorney and Client. — A settlement by attorney with clients will not stop disbarment proceedings, since the court will not permit such matters as affect the character of attorneys, who are officers of the court, to be settled privately with clients.

8. Executors and Administrators. — As respects the mismanagement of an estate by an attorney as an administrator or personal representative, the presumption of invalidity is complete where the attorney contracts with himself personally.

9. Attorney and Client. — A proceeding before Board of Bar Commissioners, in which attorney was charged with unprofessional conduct, was a "civil proceeding" and not a "criminal proceeding," and hence cause for disbarment or suspension could be established by a reasonable preponderance of the evidence, and proof beyond a reasonable doubt was not required.

10. Attorney and Client. — In proceeding against attorney for unprofessional conduct, a suspension from practice for three-year period and public reprimand was not excessive, where evidence sustained findings that attorney had in three cases employed a "runner" and had exercised improper personal solicitation, and that while administering an estate he handled it for his own interest and to the detriment of the beneficiaries.

In Court of Appeals.

Hubert Meredith, Attorney General, for complainant.

William Alpha Hubbard, David A. McCandless, Jr., and McCandless & McCandless for respondent.

OPINION BY SIMS, COMMISSIONER.

Confirming report.

The Louisville Bar Association filed a complaint against William Alpha Hubbard, charging him with unprofessional conduct. Upon a hearing, the Board of Bar Commissioners found respondent guilty and this proceeding is now before us on the report of the Board. The complaint as amended made four charges against respondent: (1) That through an employed negro solicitor, and by improper personal solicitation, respondent obtained employment in six cases known as the Knight, Fonville, Moats, Marchbanks, Wigginton and Spies cases; (2) securing, and attempting to secure, false testimony in two cases known as the McCall and the Home Laundry cases; (3) that he entered into a conspiracy with the negro solicitor and a doctor in Louisville, whereby excessive fees were paid the doctor by respondent's clients for medical services rendered them; (4) that while administering certain estates respondent handled same for his own interest and to the detriment of the beneficiaries.

The record before us is quite voluminous, running into several thousand pages, and the splendidly prepared report of the trial commissioners, even though very concise, covers 57 pages; therefore, it is evident we cannot go minutely into the various charges and keep this opinion within reasonable bounds. We will not discuss the charges which the Board found were not sustained and in discussing those which were sustained, we will do so only in a general way, yet, hoping to draw a picture of the case. After reading the record and giving it most careful consideration, we have reached the conclusion the trial commissioners gave respondent the benefit of every reasonable doubt, and in each instance wherein their report sustained the charges there was abundant evidence to support same.

The hearing was conducted before two bar commissioners, who found the charges were sustained in the Knight, Moats and Marchbanks cases in the first accusation, and were not sustained as to the other cases included therein, but that respondent's conduct in the Fonville and Spies cases deserves censure; that the second charge was not sustained but that respondent's conduct in the McCall case deserves censure; that the third charge was not sustained; that the fourth charge was sustained. Thereupon the trial commissioners recommended respondent be suspended from the practice of law in this state for the period of three years and that he be publicly reprimanded. Upon a hearing before the full Board of Bar Commissioners of the Kentucky Bar Association, the recommendation of the trial commissioners was adopted.

Respondent, a man in his middle fifties, was admitted to the Bar in 1911, and has spent the greater part of his professional life in Louisville. His home is in the country some twelve miles from the city, and his physician advised respondent not to drive a car due to his health. So he employed George Eaton, a negro about 49 years of age who resided in Louisville, as a chauffeur at a salary of $30 a month. Respondent's wife, who was also his secretary, drove him to and from his office and home. Respondent testified Eaton's only duties were to drive him about the city, and to run errands for him, occasionally to locate colored witnesses and to make investigations among them. But this record convinces us Eaton's duties were not limited to those of a chauffeur, and he plays a prominent part in the first four cases mentioned in the first charge, and also in the McCall case mentioned in the second charge.

In the Knight case, it was Eaton who reported Mrs. Knight's accident to respondent and who took him to her home the morning after the accident. It was Eaton's wife who wrote a letter for Mrs. Knight to sign on the night after her injury, discharging an attorney which her husband had employed to represent her before respondent was employed. It was Eaton who removed the Knight family to another place of abode in respondent's car, and who made promises of clothes to her husband. In the Moats case, it was Eaton who immediately after witnessing the accident handed Moats one of respondent's professional cards and solicited the case for him, telling Mr. Moats that if respondent was given the employment he would take care of the witnesses. It is interesting to note that Moats in 1923 served several months on the police force and recognized Eaton as a "court runner," who solicited business for unethical attorneys. In the Marchbanks case, Eaton was at the injured woman's home twenty minutes after she had returned from the hospital on the day of the accident soliciting the case for respondent. In the McCall case, Eaton was in the back room of McCall's home coaching witnesses in false statements, which statements were taken down by respondent in an adjoining room. Before respondent arrived, Eaton was at the hospital with the injured boy in the Fonville case. For just a chauffeur, Eaton possessed rare qualities for being in the company of those who just a few hours previously suffered personal injuries in accidents, but his ubiquity appears not to have interfered with his duties as a chauffeur for respondent. No fair mind can read this record...