Bipolar Lawyer Who Stole: Suspended, Not Disbarred
Ethics
An attorney will not be disbarred for misappropriating client's funds during a manic bipolar episode that lasted for 4 years, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in a 4-3 decision.
Mark Belz was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in 1975 and had been on medication since 1981, until a doctor discontinued it because he felt Belz no longer needed it, the judges found. Belz then went on a 4-year manic episode, which caused him to withdraw funds from a client's trust account to pay his mortgage and law firm's bills.
The court majority found that disbarment was not appropriate, given Belz's illness, his self-reporting of the incidents, his extensive recordkeeping of the withdrawals, his voluntary repayment of the money, and the fact that his clients chose to remain with him after learning of his actions. The majority found an indefinite suspension of his license with no leave to apply for reinstatement for 3 years was a more suitable punishment. Belz sought a stayed suspension.
"Our profession relies intrinsically on the trust that clients are willing to place in their lawyers, and few acts of misconduct have the capacity to erode that trust more quickly and thoroughly than the conversion of a client's funds to one's own use," Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith wrote for the majority. "Even when such conduct is recorded properly and undertaken in a manic state, as it was here, this Court condemns this conduct in the strongest possible terms. Mr. Belz acted with a dishonest and selfish motive in taking his clients' funds, he did so multiple times, and he had substantial experience with the law. A stayed suspension is simply not appropriate for this type of misconduct."
Three judges disagreed and voted for disbarment. In the minority opinion, Judge Michael A. Wolff wrote that stealing is stealing.
"If there are certain immutable rules, then surely this is one: Lawyers may not steal from their clients," Wolff wrote. "Not even borrowing without permission with the intention of repaying - it is still stealing. A license to practice law is not a license to steal. We should not give cynics, who may believe otherwise, any support for their wrong-headed view - regardless of mitigating circumstances. There are in fact no mitigating circumstances: no medical or psychiatric excuse mitigates this behavior. Lawyers must be held to this standard of honesty despite their individual circumstances."
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Workers’ Compensation Subrogation of Administrative Fees and Costs
When a worker covered by workers’ compensation makes a claim against a third party, the workers’ compensation insurance retains the right to subrogate against any recovery from that third party for all benefits paid to or on behalf of a claimant injured at work. When subrogating for more than basic medical and indemnity benefits, the Texas workers’ compensation subrogation statute provides that “the net amount recovered by a claimant in a third‑party action shall be used to reimburse the carrier for benefits, including medical benefits that have been paid for the compensable injury.” TX Labor Code § 417.002.
In fact, all 50 states provide for similar subrogation. However, none of them precisely outlines which payments or costs paid by a compensation carrier constitute “compensation” and can be recovered. The result is industry-wide confusion and an ongoing debate and argument with claimants’ attorneys over what can and can’t be included in a carrier’s lien for recovery purposes.
In addition to medical expenses, death benefits, funeral costs and/or indemnity benefits for lost wages and loss of earning capacity resulting from a compensable injury, workers’ compensation insurance carriers also expend considerable dollars for case management costs, medical bill audit fees, rehabilitation benefits, nurse case worker fees, and other similar fees. They also incur other expenses in conjunction with the handling and adjusting of workers’ compensation claims. Workers’ compensation carriers typically assert, of course, that, they are entitled to reimbursement for such expenditures when it recovers its workers’ compensation lien. Injured workers and their attorneys disagree.