197 A.D. 46 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1921
The respondent was admitted to the bar at a term of the Appellate Division, First Department, in June, 1899, and was practicing in the First Judicial District at the time he committed the acts complained of.
The petition alleges that he has been guilty of misconduct as an attorney at law with four specifications. The learned official referee has found him not guilty of the first specification. The second is as follows:
In October, 1918, the respondent received the sum of $200
The third charge states a similar agreement with one Cebarsky, and the fourth charge is as follows:
That in September, 1918, the respondent received the sum of seventy-five dollars for services to be rendered in behalf of one Nathan Cohen in connection with his registration and reclassification under the Selective Service Law. Cohen was inducted into the military service of the United States and sent to France. The respondent did not render any substantial service in behalf of his client. The respondent has refused to return any part of the money received by him as aforesaid.
As to charges 2 and 3 the respondent admits the agreement and receipt of payment and denies the rest. As to the fourth charge he admits the agreement and the receipt of seventy dollars, denying in his answer the remaining allegations.
The learned official referee has reported as to charge 2 that “ it clearly appears from the evidence that the respondent in the referee’s opinion rendered no substantial service to Fleitman for the $200 fee he received nor did he ever refund the $100 as required by the explicit terms of the agreement embodied in the receipt. Respondent claims that he tendered this amount to Fleitman but Fleitman refused to accept it. I find upon the second charge that the respondent was guilty of unprofessional conduct in that he did not to any appreciable degree carry out the conditions with his client.”
As to the third charge he reports: “It is clear from a thorough examination of the testimony, that the complaining witness’s discharge from the army was due to no service rendered for him by respondent. It is also undisputed that no part of the fee was ever refunded by respondent as required
As to charge 4 he reports: “ It appears from the respondent's direct testimony that the original agreement of $200 was abandoned by him voluntarily, and that he agreed to refund $37.50. The evidence is undisputed that no part of the fee was ever refunded by respondent, and upon charge 4, I find the respondent guilty of misconduct in that he did not make the refund called for by his agreement.”
The United States Selective Service Law of May 18, 1917, provided that all males between the ages of twenty-one and thirty were required to be registered and thereafter made subject to draft according to its terms in the military forces authorized by the act unless either exempted or 'excused. (40 U. S. Stat. at Large, 80, § 5.)
There was a simple question of fact presented in each case before the local board which was whether the registrant was a non-declarant alien and, therefore, entitled to be placed in class 5 as wholly exempted from military service.
The respondent alleges that he had been for a number of years attorney for the Immigrant Aid Society and that in the course of his work he had been brought in contact with hundreds if not thousands of immigrants and aliens and that they came to him with their grievances at the time of this confusion in the administration of the Selective Service Law as regards aliens; that he found in many instances that the local boards had placed non-declarant aliens in class 1, as subject to military duty who ought not to have been so classified; that he deemed it the legal right of these persons to have a review of the action of the local boards by the courts, and
Our conclusion is that he should be suspended for six months.
Laughlin, Dowling, Merrell and Greenbaum, JJ., concur.
Respondent suspended for six months. Settle order on notice.
Since amd. by 40 U. S. Stat. at Large, 955, § 3.— [Rep.