Lawyer suspended for ‘flouting’ court orders
Lawyer suspended for ‘flouting’ court orders
An attorney who ignored a judge’s order and kept filing the same objections to a request for production has been suspended for a year by the Florida Supreme Court.
The court agreed with The Florida Bar that the grievance referee’s recommended 91-day suspension was insufficient. But it agreed with the referee that the suspension should not be lifted until the attorney demonstrates that he can “distinguish appropriate and rational arguments from inappropriate and irrational arguments.”
The matter began when the attorney was hired in March and April 2006 to represent several companies being sued for breach of contract. Several months prior, the plaintiffs had served those companies with a request for production seeking numerous documents.
In a series of hearings, mostly before a new judge after the case was transferred to another county, the attorney and client companies continued to ignore orders to produce the documents, and the attorney resubmitted arguments that previously had been rejected by the court. The attorney also failed to provide a written response to the production motions as required in Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.350 until after the court had ordered production.
The attorney ultimately withdrew from the case, but the new judge ordered him to pay the plaintiffs’ legal fees for the successive efforts to obtain production. The judge rejected the attorney’s contention that Rule 1.350 required him to resubmit arguments already rejected by the court, saying that “simply defies common sense.
“Such flouting of this court’s orders is the very definition of bad faith conduct. This court finds [the attorney] to be an intelligent person, and this court does not believe that the gravity of his repeated misconduct can be accepted as merely an error in judgment or ignorance of the rules.”
The judge’s order was upheld on appeal to the Fourth District Court of Appeal.
The lawyer was referred to the Bar’s disciplinary system, where the referee found the lawyer had not paid any of the attorney’s fee award. The referee recommended the lawyer be found guilty of violating rules requiring competent representation of clients, prohibiting noncompliance with proper discovery requests, and barring conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The referee recommended a 91-day suspension, citing a previous case that he said prevented a longer suspension.
He also recommended the lawyer not be readmitted until he had paid the court-ordered attorney’s fees and addressed “whatever underlying psychological or emotional issues may exist which appear to interfere with his ability to objectively evaluate facts, precedents, and court orders. . . . ”
Justices upheld the referee’s finding of wrongdoing, saying it was justified by the undisputed facts of the case. But they imposed a stiffer sanction, saying this instance was distinguishable from an earlier case cited by the referee.
“For more than a year, [the attorney] refused to comply with numerous circuit orders requiring him to produce documents. He also continued to raise objections to production that had already been considered and ruled on by the circuit court. Both [the judge] and the referee noted concerns as to [the attorney’s] fitness to practice.”
The justices also noted the aggravating factors found by the referee, including the attorney had not paid any of the ordered fees, failed to acknowledge that he had acted wrongfully, and engaged in multiple instances of the same offense. “Moreover, [the attorney] has continued his abusive litigation practices before both the referee and this court; he has filed numerous motions, many of which are procedurally improper and without merit,” justices said.
Chief Justice Jorge Labarga and Justices Barbara Pariente, Peggy Quince, Charles Canady, Ricky Polston, and James Perry concurred in the per curiam opinion. Justice Fred Lewis concurred in the result only.
The court acted May 28 in case no. SC13-2067.
