The Illinois Review Board recommends suspension of an attorney for six months.

Respondent was admitted to practice in Illinois in 1972. He has been in private practice since 1982 and concentrates in litigation and appeals. As of the time of his hearing in September 2017, Respondent had no clients, other than litigating on his own behalf the matters that gave rise to this disciplinary matter. He has no prior discipline.

The misconduct involved sanctions against him in civil litigation

In September 2004, Respondent filed a lawsuit on behalf of Mary Iacovetti, who, in October 2003, was fired from her job as director of a KinderCare Learning Center in Lombard, Illinois, following three incidents involving the safety and welfare of children at the center. In 2005, the court dismissed most of the claims in the lawsuit, but allowed two defamation claims to remain. Those claims alleged that statements in internal KinderCare documents regarding the three incidents were false.

In 2008, Iacovetti was deposed. In her deposition, Iacovetti admitted that two of the incidents occurred as described, and that she had no personal knowledge of the third incident. Her deposition testimony thus directly contradicted essential elements of her cause of action. Nonetheless, Respondent continued to aggressively pursue his client’s claims, including opposing the KinderCare defendants’ motion for summary judgment, filing multiple “emergency” motions when there was no emergency, and attempting to depose five individuals from Oregon at KinderCare’s expense when those individuals would not have provided testimony important to the litigation.

In May 2009, the court granted the KinderCare defendants’ motion for summary judgment and dismissed Iacovetti’s defamation claims. In June 2009, a lawyer other than Respondent filed a notice of appeal on behalf of Iacovetti, contesting the grant of summary judgment for the KinderCare defendants. Also in June 2009, the lawyer for the KinderCare defendants brought a motion for sanctions against Iacovetti and Respondent pursuant to Supreme Court Rule 137. He argued that, because Iacovetti knew that the events that her lawsuit had alleged were false were actually true, the KinderCare defendants should not have had to litigate the matter over the preceding five years.

In June 2010, Respondent filed a notice of interlocutory appeal, challenging 17 orders or rulings by the court between March 2009 and May 2010 and requesting relief that included enjoining KinderCare from seeking sanctions. On the same day, He filed another notice of appeal, contesting 39 orders or rulings by the court. Those appeals were consolidated with Iacovetti’s appeal from June 2009.

A sanction of nearly $140,000 was imposed as a result.

But he frustrated collection efforts

In July 2013, after the court denied Respondent’s motion to quash KinderCare’s citation to discover assets and found the sanctions judgment valid, Respondent filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy – doing so 40 minutes before a scheduled hearing before the court. KinderCare could not proceed on the citation to discover assets until it obtained an order from the bankruptcy court that the sanctions debt was non-dischargeable. It thus filed an adversary complaint in the bankruptcy proceeding to determine the dischargeability of the sanctions judgment.

In September 2013, the bankruptcy court granted summary judgment for KinderCare, finding Respondent’s sanctions debt was non-dischargeable. In October, KinderCare’s citation proceeding was removed from the bankruptcy stay calendar and allowed to proceed.

Over the course of the next four years, Respondent filed numerous motions, including multiple motions for summary judgment, alleging that the court had no jurisdiction to impose sanctions and the defendants lacked standing in the case, based upon arguments that had already been rejected by trial and appellate courts. He also based some motions on a claim that the sanctions judgment had been discharged in bankruptcy, which was not the case. All of Respondent’s motions were denied by the trial courts, which found some of them to be frivolous and therefore imposed additional sanctions on Respondent.

Respondent continued to appeal the denials of his motions to the appellate court, which also found some of Respondent’s appeals to be frivolous and further sanctioned him. And Respondent continued to seek review of those appellate court rulings in the Illinois Supreme Court, which denied all of his petitions. Respondent’s grounds for appeal in both the appellate courts and Supreme Court were the same corporate-conversion and bankruptcy-discharge arguments that had repeatedly been rejected.

Sanction here

We note, as did the Hearing Board, that Respondent’s misconduct was serious, and some aspects of it could support a suspension until further order. However, we concur with the Hearing Board’s reasoning that, under the circumstances of this matter, a sanction that requires Respondent to make amends for his misconduct before resuming practice better serves the purposes of discipline than a suspension until further order. (See Hearing Bd. Report at 40-42.) As the Hearing Board noted: “[C]learly tying Respondent’s ability to resume practice to payment of the sanctions gives Respondent a genuine incentive to pay the sanctions. Frankly, from our perspective, this Respondent would have no such incentive if he were suspended until further order.” (Id. at 43.) We fully agree.

Accordingly, taking into account Respondent’s serious misconduct as well as the aggravation present here, we recommend that Respondent be suspended for six months and until he successfully completes the ARDC Professionalism seminar and pays all of the sanctions that have been imposed on him, totaling $205,224.10. We believe that this sanction is commensurate with Respondent’s misconduct, consistent with discipline that has been imposed for comparable misconduct, and sufficient to serve the goals of attorney discipline and deter others from committing similar misconduct.