In the Matter of Lombard

Horney, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from the order of the Circuit Court for ²⁰⁴ Montgomery County disbarring Earl J. Lombard from practicing law in the State of Maryland. The order was entered after a full evidentiary hearing on the petition filed by the Grievance Committee of the Maryland State Bar Association with the approval of the Executive Council. The committee and the attorney are usually referred to herein as the petitioner and the respondent, respectively.

The petitioner specifically enumerated the charges against the respondent, but it would serve no useful purpose to set them forth in detail. Instead, it will suffice to say that the respondent was charged with professional misconduct and with conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice and to summarize the charges in a concise statement of the facts. In March of 1960, the Orphans’ Court of Montgomery County appointed the respondent as administrator c.t.a. of the estate of Henry Moorehead Underwood. Between September of 1960 and March of 1962, the respondent converted the assets of the estate, consisting of both real and personal property, into cash and deposited the proceeds in a bank account he maintained in his name as “attorney” where such funds were commingled with other funds belonging either to other clients or to himself and immediately began diverting such funds by unexplained withdrawals in amounts that were not and could not have been made on behalf of the estate.

In all, a total of approximately $32,000 belonging to the estate was deposited in this account. And a check of $1,550.50, dated April 15, 1963, payable to the respondent as administrator and endorsed to the credit of himself as attorney was deposited in an unknown bank. Prior to the first deposit of estate funds, the attorney account had been overdrawn several times. The last of these was made good by the transfer of the bank account of the decedent to the attorney account.

At no time after the deposit in November of 1960 of $25,051, from the sale of the real property, did the balance in the attorney account amount to as much as $25,000. In September of 1961, after having deposited in the account estate funds aggregating more than $31,000, the account was overdrawn $61.83. Twice thereafter the account was overdrawn again. It was finally closed by the respondent in May of 1962. ²⁰⁵ Although most of the assets of the estate had been converted to cash within nine months after his appointment as administrator, the respondent failed to state an administration account within the time prescribed by law.

And when the respondent disregarded the repeated efforts of the probate court to bring about the filing of an account, that court revoked the letters of administration. The revocation of letters was reversed in the Matter of Estate of Underwood, 233 Md. 394 , 196 A. 2d 877 (1964), not because he had been efficient (for in fact he had been extremely lax) in attending to his duties as administrator, but because proper statutory notice that he was in default had not been given. While no administration account has yet been filed, the respondent, on or about the time the charges against him were being formalized, exhibited a proposed draft (which was neither signed nor verified) of an administration account and distribution to specific legatees, however the chief deputy register of wills declined to accept it because many of the disbursements shown therein were not accompanied by vouchers and because the respondent had not charged himself with interest on the funds he had collected but had not promptly distributed in accordance with law. Within a month after the residuary legatees had filed exceptions to the proposed account, the respondent purchased nine cashier’s checks totaling $20,000.

Eight of them, each in the amount of $2,312.50, were in payment of the specific legacies of $2,500 each, less the collateral inheritance tax thereon of $187.50. The other check, in the amount of $1,500 payable to the register of wills, was in payment of the collateral inheritance tax on the specific legacies. The amount due the register of wills for administration costs and tax on commissions as well as the collateral inheritance tax on the residuary legacies is still unpaid. The respondent, answering the petition, denied the alleged acts of misconduct, but he did not appear at the hearing on the petition for disbarment or offer any explanation of his conduct.

The lower court, basing its conclusion on the failure to set up a separate fiduciary account, on the commingling of estate funds with other funds in the attorney account, on the diver ²⁰⁶ sion of estate funds by unexplained withdrawals for unspecified purposes and on the failure to file an acceptable administration account, found that the defendant had committed professional misconduct as well as conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. Having so found, the court commented on the fact that the respondent had given no explanation for doing what he had done. • On appeal it is contended that the lower court erred: (i) in finding on the evidence presented that the respondent should