A divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court has rejected a Stroudsburglawyer's argument that he doesn't deserve disbarment formishandling funds belonging to five of his clients.
The court ruled 5-2 to adopt a recommendation by theDisciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania that PeterJ. Quigley be disbarred.
Justice Sallie Updyke Mundy, writing for the majority, saidQuigley's arguments that he did not possess criminal intent inmishandling the funds and that all of his clients have since beenpaid in full were unavailing.
"This court is unpersuaded that these circumstances mitigate theserious violations Quigley committed, as Quigley's misconductinvolved five separate clients over a three-year period," Mundysaid. "Further, he made full restitution to four of the clientsonly after disciplinary proceedings were initiated."
Mundy was joined by Chief Justice Thomas Saylor and Justices MaxBaer, Debra Todd and Kevin Dougherty.
The majority also rejected Quigley's claims that severalpersonal difficulties and mental health issues contributed to hisactions and therefore mitigated the seriousness of the conduct.
A three-member hearing committee of the Office of DisciplinaryCounsel found that Quigley co-mingled personal and client funds inorder to evade IRS detection and used client money from hisInterest on Lawyers Trust Account to satisfy a lien on his officebuilding.
According to the majority's opinion, Quigley attributed hismishandling of the client funds to a combination of his longtimebookkeeper leaving in 2013, the dissolution of a 17-year romanticrelationship in 2012 or 2013, and a decline in business due to amisprint of his office phone number in a phonebook advertisementprinted in June 2013.
But Mundy noted the committee's finding that Quigley used one ofhis client's funds to satisfy the office building lien in2012before his bookkeeper left and his phone number wasmisprinted.
"We are not unsympathetic to the personal hardships faced byQuigley which overlapped with his period of misconduct," Mundy saidin a footnote. "However, we cannot overlook that Quigley'smismanagement of client funds with which he had been entrustedpre-dated two of the circumstances to which he attributes hismisconduct, i.e., the resignation of his bookkeeper and themisprint of his advertisement."
Quigley also argued that the aforementioned stressors causeddepression and post-traumatic stress disorder, which contributed tohis mishandling of client funds, but Mundy said Quigley "failed todemonstrate a causal connection between his misconduct and apsychiatric disorder sufficient to constitute a lesser disciplinarysanction in this matter."