State ex rel. Sorensen v. Goldman
| Decision Date | 08 June 1934 |
| Docket Number | 28593 |
| Citation | 255 N.W. 32,127 Neb. 340 |
| Parties | STATE, EX REL. C. A. SORENSEN, ATTORNEY GENERAL, PLAINTIFF, v. LAWRENCE B. GOLDMAN, DEFENDANT |
| Court | Nebraska Supreme Court |
Original proceeding by the state, on the relation of the attorney general, to disbar the respondent. Judgment of disbarment.
JUDGMENT OF DISBARMENT.
Syllabus by the Court.
1. When an attorney collects funds of a client, he holds such funds as a trustee for, and not as a debtor of, such client.
2. It is the duty of an attorney at once to notify his client if he has made a collection for him, and to make remittance thereof as soon as he reasonably can do so.
3. The practice of retaining a client's funds for an indefinite period deserves the severest censure.
4. An attorney, as an officer of this court, must so conduct himself as to assist in maintaining confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the courts.
5. An attorney who, directly or through others employed by him, carries on a systematic solicitation of damage suits, a business commonly known as " ambulance chasing," is guilty of unethical and unprofessional conduct, subjecting himself to the discipline of this court.
Original disbarment proceeding by the State, on the relation of C. A. Sorensen, Attorney General, against Lawrence B. Goldman.
Respondent disbarred.
Paul F. Good, Attorney General, and William C. Ramsey, for plaintiff.
Lawrence B. Goldman, pro se.
A complaint for disbarment was filed in this court by C. A. Sorensen, attorney general, against the defendant, and served upon him by the sheriff of Douglas county on August 27, 1932, and later an amended complaint was filed.
Carroll O. Stauffer, a former district judge, was appointed referee, and a trial was begun before him on November 13, 1933. The bill of exceptions of the evidence taken before him consists of 3 volumes of 1,221 pages, including 94 exhibits, largely of photostatic copies of checks, attorneys' liens, letters, receipts, and notes.
At the beginning of the trial, the first witness called was Mary Grabarkiewicz, who testified that she lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and sustained an accident while going through Axtell, Nebraska, in May of 1932, and was taken to the Brewster Hospital at Holdrege, where she remained six weeks, and then was taken to a private house for further treatment; that, while she had never met or heard of the defendant before, on June 8 he came to Holdrege and solicited her to employ him in her claim for damages, and induced her to accompany him to Omaha in his automobile. She there remained in the St. Joseph Hospital for some time, and later in Stuntz Hall.
That on July 11 she signed an attorney's employment contract, agreeing to pay the defendant 33 1/3 per cent. of any amount recovered. While he had represented to her that he thought he could secure $ 5,000 damages, yet on August 3 she signed a contract of settlement and release, and a check was thereupon delivered by a Burlington representative for $ 2,100, payable to "Miss Mary Grabarkiewicz and her attorney, L. B. Goldman," payable at the Continental Illinois Bank & Trust Company or the First National Bank of Chicago. She was induced to indorse this check in blank, and delivered the same to the defendant, who promptly cashed the same. She thereafter telephoned repeatedly to his office, and on those occasions when she reached him was promised several times that he would make settlement with her "tomorrow." Finally, on August 18, he gave her his check for $ 1,300 on the Union State Bank of Omaha, adding $ 100 for her trouble. Payment was refused on the check for want of sufficient funds. On September 24, 1932, Henry J. Beal, county attorney, filed an information against the defendant in the district court for Douglas county for embezzlement of said sum of $ 1,200.
Another charge was filed against the defendant by the attorney general because of a transaction with a client, Maurice W. Snyder, who sustained injuries about December 21, 1931, while employed as a brakeman near Grand Island, Nebraska, and was solicited to, and did, employ defendant, and is based upon these facts: A check was received in full settlement from the Burlington railroad on May 9, 1932, and the defendant induced his client, Maurice W. Snyder, to indorse the same in blank, and defendant thereupon collected the proceeds thereof, and retained a portion thereof belonging to his client. There was filed in this court on May 18, 1933, an affidavit of said Maurice W. Snyder, setting out that the balance of $ 550, owed to him by the defendant, has been settled by promissory notes of the defendant, and that the affiant is confident that said notes will be paid in due course, and that the said Snyder is unwilling that the said Goldman be disbarred on account of any transaction with him, which affidavit is sworn to before Herman Corenman, notary public.
After the trial the referee filed his report in this court, embracing his findings of fact and conclusions of law. He found that, although repeated demands were made, the defendant did not pay to Mary Grabarkiewicz the $ 1,200 due her until after the original complaint was filed in this action, and until after a complaint for embezzlement had been filed against him, and that he failed and refused to pay to his client, Maurice W. Snyder, the sum of $ 2,100 due from said settlement, and that he had only partially paid the same at the time of the hearing before the referee herein, and was still indebted in a sum in excess of $ 400 and interest.
With reference to that part of the complaint set out in paragraph 3, the referee finds, in brief, that the defendant, personally and through hired agents, employees, and runners, has continuously made a practice of what is commonly known as "ambulance chasing," being the active and urgent solicitation of contracts for legal services in collecting damages for personal injuries sustained by clients in automobile collisions, railroad wrecks, and other mishaps; that such solicitation has been made by the defendant among persons theretofore having no acquaintance and no personal business or professional conduct with the defendant, and who, but for such solicitation, would not have engaged the services of the defendant as attorney.
The evidence discloses that the defendant, by one pretext or another, succeeded in getting the checks for the payment of clients' damages into his possession, indorsed by his clients, and that his method, as shown by the proof in this case, was then to consider this entirely as a civil debt and, if he could settle the same by post-dated checks or by any subterfuge or inducement or succeed in getting his clients to take his own unsecured notes for the amount justly due them, he considered that such settlement absolved him of any wrong-doing in the matter, and that such settlement, made by checks or notes, even if the same were not collectible according to their terms, changed the obligation to a civil liability on his part, which could not be availed of by the attorney general in proceedings to disbar him.
The matter is not only pending upon the report of the referee, with a motion of the attorney general for judgment thereon, but also upon a motion of the defendant asking for 30 days longer within which to file additional briefs. However, the defendant on May 1, 1934, filed a 29-page brief in his behalf. In this brief he insists that he is presumed to be innocent, and that proof necessary to revoke a license to practice law must be clear and convincing to a reasonable certainty; that is, to be practically equivalent to proof beyond a reasonable doubt. It is also insisted by the defendant in his brief that, if there is any reasonable doubt from either the law, the rules, the pleading, or the evidence, as to the existence of the power of this court to deprive the defendant of his valuable right to practice law, that doubt should be resolved against the exercise of such authority.
On April 4, 1934, Howard Saxton and John E. Eidam filed their written withdrawal as attorneys for the defendant in this case, and the case was argued to this court on May 7, 1934, by the defendant pro se and the attorney general.
Fortunately, cases of this nature are very rare, but when the proof is clear this court has not hesitated to discipline attorneys who have failed to live up to the high standards of the legal profession, and in the past the recommendations of the referees appointed in similar cases have, with rare exceptions, been adopted.
No office offers greater opportunity for honorable service than that of an attorney, and he is required to uphold the ideals of this profession. Into his hands, without bonds, are entrusted the savings of the widow, the inheritance of the helpless orphan, the settlement of estates, and the only guaranty that this trust will be honorably executed by him is the character of the lawyer, as established by his reputation and conduct. As soon as a lawyer so conducts himself that confidence can no longer be placed in him with safety, his usefulness to his clients, the court, and the state has ceased. When he betrays helpless clients, and deprives them of their property, which he was employed to secure, by converting the...
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