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James A. Heard (WSBA No. 12272, admitted 1982), of Aberdeen, has been suspended from the practice of law for two years by order of the Washington Supreme Court, dated September 24, 1998. The suspension, effective immediately, is based on his financial and sexual exploitation of a client.
Financial Misconduct
In 1989, Mr. Heard represented a 23-year-old woman who suffered serious head injuries and was in a coma for two weeks as a result of a motorcycle accident. Mr. Heard negotiated settlements on her behalf with her insurance company and the insurer for the owner of the motorcycle. Each insurer settled for policy limits of $25,000. The other driver settled by purportedly transferring a portion of an undocumented and unrecorded interest in a house and the title to an automobile registered to the driver, both of which assets proved illusory. Mr. Heard valued the total settlement at $150,000. The two $25,000 insurance checks were the only cash received in settlement of the client’s claims; Mr. Heard kept all of the cash as his one-third contingency fee.
Mr. Heard never provided his client with an accounting of the settlement proceeds and fee.
In assigning a specific value to the purported transfer of the house, Mr. Heard relied on the statements of the driver, who claimed he paid money to his sister for the house, that it was titled in her name, and that she owned an undivided, but untitled interest in it. Prior to the execution of the settlement agreement, Mr. Heard took no other steps to independently verify the existence or valuation of the driver’s interest in the house. Mr. Heard did not have the automobile appraised prior to the settlement.
Mr. Heard did not advise his client of problems which might result from the failure to verify the existence or value of the house interest or the automobile. Nor did he advise his client that he was retaining the only cash received in the settlement. Shortly after the settlement, the driver’s sister sold the house. The client received nothing from the sale.
After Mr. Heard received his fee, he took no steps to ensure that the client obtained the benefit from the purported house transfer, nor did he advise his client of contacts his office had with the driver’s sister, wherein she denied any claim on her house by his client.
Sexual Misconduct
Prior to final settlement of this matter, Mr. Heard went to the client’s house and asked her to go with him to a restaurant/lounge to talk about the case. Although the client told Mr. Heard she should not be drinking alcohol, and he knew from her medical records that she had a history of alcohol and sexual abuse, he bought drinks for her. After leaving the lounge, he asked her to drive his car to another lounge even though she had told him she could not drive because she was a habitual traffic offender with outstanding warrants. At the second lounge, he bought additional drinks for her. They then left and, at his suggestion, went to his apartment, where they spent the night together and engaged in consensual sexual relations.
The Court found that Mr. Heard’s financial exploitation of his client violated RPC 1.5; his failure to ascertain the status of the interest in the house violated the requirements of RPC 1.1 and 1.3 to completely and diligently represent the client; his failure to keep his client advised of the status of her matter violated RPC 1.4; and his sexual exploitation of his client was an act of moral turpitude in violation of RLD 1.1(a).
Mr. Heard was represented by John Farra. Disciplinary Counsel Maureen Devlin and Randy Beitel represented the Bar Association.
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