 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
In re Anderson8/2/2001
$1207.50 due the medical provider; it remained there for about a month. Twice more, in February and April of 1994, the balanced dipped below the obligated amount for appreciable periods. In April of 1994, Anderson contacted Phillips & Green about an unrelated matter and was told of the outstanding bill in the Calligan case, whereupon he paid the medical providers the $1207.50.
Testifying before the Hearing Committee, Anderson asserted that he had simply forgotten to make the payment to Phillips & Green following settlement. He explained that at the same time the Calligan matter was settled, he was concluding a settlement in another personal injury case for a client named James Green. On the same day he gave Calligan the settlement sheet showing intended disbursements, he purchased a cashier's check payable to James Green for $3,700, and the following week purchased a cashier's check for $1,090 to pay Green's medical provider, Dr. Wyatt. Having made these payments, he mistakenly believed - until informed otherwise thirteen months later - that he had also paid Drs. Phillips & Green.
Using cashier's checks in the above manner was part of the "system" Anderson followed generally to keep track of client funds and disbursements. As the Board recognized, this system had obvious pitfalls because "it did not permit [Anderson] to verify that he had written every check required for each client's settlement, a defect that proved to be especially problematic when two cases were settled at the same time." Specifically, although Anderson prepared settlement sheets listing required distributions for each case that resulted in a settlement, and made corresponding notations on the case file, he kept no separate trust or escrow account nor ledgers or books reflecting receipts and disbursements. He explained that, since he had relatively few clients, once he received a settlement check he would deposit it and then "immediately get checks together [of everybody who was owed some money] and send them out," keeping record of these transactions "in head."
Calligan testified that after the March 1993 settlement and receipt of his share, he received additional telephone calls from the collection agency telling him that the medical bill had not been paid. Between one and two months after the settlement he spoke with Phillips & Green and was told "the bill had been discharged." In the meantime, he left messages on Anderson's answering machine but could not remember whether in them he had said "anything more than please call me," rather than (or in addition to) giving the reason for the call. He was positive, however, that he had never spoken with Anderson after settlement about the unpaid medical bill.
The Hearing Committee found that Anderson had committed commingling and misappropriation (Rule 1.15 (a)), and had failed both to notify and pay third-party claimants (Rule 1.15 (b)) and to designate a trust or escrow account (Rule 1.17 (a)). In concluding that the misappropriation resulted from recklessness and not simple negligence, it rejected Anderson's defense that the failure to pay the medical bill was inadvertent. First, the Committee reasoned, his "mere explanation . . . that he `forgot' to pay the medical providers" was not "sufficient to establish `simple negligence' under applicable precedents"; rather, his "failure to maintain any system of documentary record-keeping constitutes recklessness, which in this context stands on the same footing as knowing and intentional misappropriation." Second, and "more importantly," the Committee "d not credit [Anderson's] explanation of events as resulting from an honest, good faith lapse in memory." Rather, it found that his "self-
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 District of Columbia Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|