| Description: |
Seattle lawyer Donald A. McLeod (WSBA No. 1308, admitted 1968) has been ordered reprimanded, pursuant to a stipulation for discipline approved by the Disciplinary Board on September 26, 1997. The discipline is based upon his signing and sealing a notary certificate when the contents of the certificate were false, in violation of RPC 8.4(b), 8.4(c); purporting to comply with a court order regarding discovery with interrogatory answers containing the false notary certificate, in violation of RPC 3.4(c); and transmitting those answers with the false notary certificate to opposing counsel, in violation of RPC 4.1(a).
McLeod represented plaintiffs, the crew of a fishing vessel, in a lawsuit against the owners of the fishing vessel for nonpayment of wages. The trial court ordered plaintiffs to respond to interrogatories on or before January 31, 1995. On that date, McLeod transmitted to opposing counsel several sets of signed interrogatory responses, including interrogatory responses of a plaintiff who resided in Rhode Island. Attached to that plaintiff’s response was a notary certificate signed and sealed by McLeod as a Notary Public, which appeared to reflect that the Rhode Island plaintiff signed the document in King County, Washington, on January 16, 1995.
At the arbitration hearing, the Rhode Island plaintiff testified that the signature on the interrogatory responses purporting to be his was not his. He indicated that the answers were answers he had approved over the telephone, and that he would have signed these interrogatory responses, but he had not signed them and had not authorized anyone to sign his name to them. He further testified that he neither had been in King County, Washington, nor had met with his counsel anywhere, during January 1995.
Respondent represented himself. Disciplinary Counsel Joanne S. Abelson represented the Association.
|