This was defense attorney Kimberly Allyson Hansen’s third discipline proceeding. It arises from her representation of two defendants before the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board. The WCAB imposed sanctions against Hansen and three other attorneys from her law firm after concluding that they had intentionally misled the Board, causing it to take unwarranted action.
According to the 23 page State Bar Opinion (Designated for Publication) “At all times relevant to this matter, she worked as a vice-president at the law firm of Stockwell, Harris, Woolverton & Muehl and was an experienced workers’ compensation attorney.”
Louis Speight, an employee of Vulcan Materials Company, Western Division, submitted a workers’ compensation claim for work-related injuries. During the course of litigation, it took defense attorneys three attempts to obtain a QME panel. The Medical Unit denied the first QME Request “due to the lack of all necessary information.” The Medical Unit also informed Hansen that her first QME Request had been filed prematurely. Hansen was directed to “resubmit [her] request as soon as possible…” The Medical Unit notified Hansen it was rejecting her second request because it also lacked “all necessary information. ” One week later, on July 28, 2009, Hansen submitted a third QME panel request to the Medical Unit.
Between the second and third QME request, the Speight case was set for conference. The WCALJ overruled defense objections and set the matter for trial. But a defense Petition for Removal was granted on the issue of the QME panel. However defendants “failed to disclose to the WCAB that the Medical Unit had timely advised Hansen that the First and Second QME Requests were deficient.”
Three weeks after the Petition for Removal was filed and before the WCAB ruled on it, the Medical Unit issued a QME panel in response to Hansen’s third QME Request. “The WCAB granted the Petition for Removal on December 21, 2009, on the grounds that the ALJ should have ordered the matter off calendar to allow the Defendant to obtain a QME panel. Still, Hansen did not notify the Board that a QME panel had already been assigned three months earlier, and she again remained silent when the WCAB issued a second order on March 9, 2010, rescinding the ALJ’s trial-setting order and directing the Medical Unit’s Medical Director to issue a QME panel.”
Three weeks later, the WCAB learned of the true state of affairs when the Medical Director filed a verified Petition for Reconsideration, a Petition to Reopen the Record, and an Offer of Proof, which disclosed that the Medical Unit had in fact timely responded to Hansen, advising her that the First and Second QME Requests had been denied for procedural deficiencies and that the Third QME Request had been granted and a panel had been issued several months earlier.
The WCAB did not take lightly the fact that its orders to the ALJ to vacate the trial setting order and to the Medical Unit to issue a QME panel were based on “a distorted version of the record.” The WCAB concluded its hotly contested sanction hearing by saying the “problem was not that the attorneys zealously represented their client; it was that they did so by misleading the WCAB, by concealing material facts, and by supporting their position with half-truths.”
As a consequence of the WCAB’s actions, the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel of the State Bar (OCTC) initiated disciplinary proceedings against Hansen and her colleague Kevin White, an associate with the Stockwell firm, who attended a mandatory settlement conference. The hearing judge in the disciplinary matter determined against Hanson that “Hansen’s participation in the workers’ compensation case involved acts of dishonesty constituting moral turpitude. She further found three factors in aggravation (two prior records of discipline, significant harm, and lack of insight) and two factors in mitigation ( cooperation and good character).”
Both Hansen and the Office of the Chief Trial Counsel of the State Bar (OCTC) appealed. Hansen asserts that this case should be dismissed because she made no misrepresentations to the WCAB, but rather was merely zealously representing her clients. OCTC supports the hearing judge’s culpability findings, but requested a finding of more aggravation and less mitigation, and that after appeal there be a recommend disbarment.
Having independently reviewed the record it was found that “Hansen is culpable of acts of moral turpitude, in violation of Business and Professions Code section 6106.” However it agreed “with the hearing judge that an 18-month actual suspension is appropriate.”