Merles v. Lerner

• Decision Date: 16 February 1984
• Citation: 461 N.E.2d 772,391 Mass. 221
• Parties: Wallace R. MERLES v. Louis C. LERNER et al. 1
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

Page 772

461 N.E.2d 772

391 Mass. 221

Wallace R. MERLES v. Louis C. LERNER et al. ¹

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Norfolk.

Argued Oct. 3, 1983.

Decided Feb. 16, 1984.

Edward Woll, Jr., Boston (Patrick P. Dinardo, Boston, and Leonard I. Schreiber, New York City, with him), for defendants.

Gary R. Greenberg, Boston (George W. Mykulak, Newtonville, with him), for plaintiff.

Before HENNESSEY, C.J., and WILKINS, LIACOS, ABRAMS, NOLAN, LYNCH & O'CONNOR, JJ.

LYNCH, Justice.

This case raises the same issue as our opinion in DiLuzio v. United Elec., Radio & Mach. Workers, Local 274, 391 Mass. 211, 461 N.E.2d 766 (1984), namely whether the denial by a judge of a party's pro hac vice motion for the admission of out-of-State counsel amounted to an abuse of discretion.

The procedural context of this case is, however, somewhat different. We transferred the case to this court on our own motion, following certification of an interlocutory appeal by a single justice of the Appeals Court. The appeal was taken from a Superior Court judge's denial of the defendants' motion for admission and his allowance of the plaintiff's motion for a protective order preventing the defendants' out-of-State counsel from conducting his deposition. As in DiLuzio, we find no abuse of discretion in the denial of the pro hac vice motion, nor do we find error in the issuance of the protective order, and therefore we affirm.

The plaintiff, Wallace R. Merles, brought this action in November, 1982, against Marina Industries, Inc. (Marina), its president, Louis C. Lerner, and others alleging that Lerner and Marina did not pay him 15% of the gross profits of a proposed joint venture, as had been agreed. In exchange for and in reliance upon this fee arrangement, Merles asserted that for three years he performed various services in connection with a real estate development project undertaken by Marina. Numerous drafts of a joint venture agreement were prepared and circulated; however, no single agreement was signed by all of the parties involved. The defendants subsequently denied Merles's entitlement to 15% of the profits and Merles brought this action.

The defendants were represented by the law firm of Sullivan & Worcester (S & W) as local counsel. For the first two months of the litigation, all pleadings by the defendants (e.g., an answer, a counterclaim, a motion to dismiss) were prepared and filed by an attorney from S & W. Leonard I. Schreiber, a New York attorney, who had represented Lerner on various occasions in the past, was also listed on these papers as acting "of counsel" to the litigation. Marina, through a filing signed by its S & W attorney, filed a notice of taking Merles's deposition, and it was subsequently scheduled to take place at S & W's offices on January 13, 1983. On the morning of that day, the defendants filed a motion to allow Mr. Schreiber to appear and participate in the action pro hac vice, thus enabling him to conduct Merles's deposition. At the same time, Merles filed a motion for a protective order to prevent Schreiber from deposing him, but permitting the deposition to go forward if conducted by the defendants' counsel of record, S & W. A judge in the Superior Court denied the motion for admission and allowed the protective order, but permitted Mr. Schreiber to attend Merles's deposition. The deposition was subsequently conducted by counsel from S & W, with Mr. Schreiber in attendance.

After this initial ruling, a series of procedural thrusts and parries ensued. On February 25, 1983, the defendants moved for reconsideration of the judge's orders of January 13, contending that statements made in the plaintiff's deposition were inconsistent with certain assertions that he had made in his affidavit in support of the motion for a protective order. The plaintiff opposed this motion. The judge denied the motion for reconsideration, and the defendants then appealed the denial to the Appeals Court and applied for a stay pending appeal.

In response, a single justice stated that he believed that the trial judge had not had an opportunity to review the transcript of Merles's deposition (regarding the alleged inconsistencies), and therefore he permitted the defendants to renew their reconsideration motion before the trial judge. For the second time, the judge denied reconsideration. The defendants appealed, and renewed their application for a stay pending appeal. The single justice ordered the proceedings stayed and certified an interlocutory appeal from the January 13, 1983, orders of the trial judge allowing the plaintiff's motion for a protective order and denying the defendants' pro hac vice motion.

As we observed in DiLuzio, the degree of discretion accorded a judge in deciding whether to admit an out-of-State attorney is broad. As with most rulings by a judge regarding the management of a case, "[o]nly in rare instances can it be ruled that there has been an abuse of discretion amounting to [an] error of law." Bresnahan v. Proman, 312 Mass. 97, 101-102, 43 N.E.2d 336 (1942). See Davis v. Boston Elevated Ry., 235 Mass. 482, 497, 502, 126 N.E. 841 (1920). This is not one of those "rare instances."

As in DiLuzio, the defendants are already competently represented by local counsel, so there is no question raised of a potential denial of adequate representation. For the first two months of the litigation preceding Merles's deposition, S & W submitted all papers filed with the trial court; on the record, Mr. Schreiber's involvement appears to have been minimal at best. His admission to the case could not have been extremely pressing; S & W waited until the day of Merles's deposition to file the pro hac vice motion.

Competency of existing counsel is a relevant factor in adjudging pro hac vice motions, Draganescu v. First Nat'l Bank, 502 F.2d 550 (5th Cir.1974), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 929, 95 S.Ct. 1655, 44 L.Ed.2d 86 (1975), both as an element shaping the judge's discretion in civil cases and as a component of the Sixth Amendment right to representation in the criminal context. See, e.g., Ross v. Reda, 510 F.2d 1172 (6th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 892, 96 S.Ct. 190, 46 L.Ed.2d 124 (1975). It is also significant that the court's resolution of the situation was not draconian. Mr. Schreiber was permitted to attend both of Merles's depositions, in January and March, 1983, and the denial of the motion for admission in no way prevented him from assisting with the litigation in any capacity short of being attorney of record.

The judge was also entitled to deny the pro hac vice motion on the ground that Mr. Schreiber may have been a witness to or participated in discussions of the nature of the services that Merles was supposed to be performing for Marina. Such a potentiality does not have to rise to the level of a DR 5-102(A) or (B) disqualification, ² as the defendants urge,...