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Utah Supreme Court upholds dismissal of bar complaint against labor judge over destroyed reports

A former administrative law judge who allowed medical panel reports issued in worker’s compensation disputes to be rejected and destroyed — without the parties or their attorneys being informed of the existence of those reports — cannot be charged with violating a state bar professional conduct rule, the Utah Supreme Court has ruled.

In a 5-0 opinion issued Friday, the court agreed that Richard LaJeunesse “at most” made a good faith but mistaken interpretation of a law that governed the performance of his quasijudicial authority as an administrative law judge (ALJ) for the Utah Labor Commission. And that, the ruling says, is insufficient to sustain a claim of misconduct.

The opinion — which does not take a position on whether LaJeunesse’s interpretation was correct — upholds a trial judge’s ruling dismissing the attorney discipline case against LaJeunesse.

“I think this is a good opinion and we are pleased with it,” Elizabeth Bowman, LaJeunesse’s lawyer, said Tuesday. “All judges have to have the freedom to make the right decisions based upon their interpretations of the law.”

Still pending is a bar complaint against attorney Debbie Hann, a former ALJ who worked under LaJeunesse’s supervision and who also is accused of misconduct.

Bowman, who also represents Hann, said her case has been on hold, pending the high court’s ruling in LaJeunesse’s case, because both involve the same statutes and policies. She said LaJeunesse and Hann retired.

Under state law, an appointed medical panel is required to submit a written report in workers compensation disputes “in a form prescribed” by the Labor Commission’s Adjudication Division. ALJs are required to “promptly distribute full copies” of that report to the parties and their attorneys. After discussing the matter with Hann, LaJeunesse — who was an ALJ and the division’s director from 2001 through 2012 — interpreted the statute to allow an ALJ to request changes to the form and wording of reports without submitting the rejected report to the parties, according to court records.

In applying that policy, Hann had asked doctors to prepare new ones, the bar complaint against her says. The complaint says Hann destroyed original medical panel reports and instructed staffers to delete computer entries in the cases.

LaJeunesse also personally rejected and requested new medical panel reports in one instance, court records say.

A complaint by a party in a case led to an audit and an investigation by state authorities in 2012 and then Utah State Bar complaints in 2013, accusing LaJeunesse and Hann of engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice.

The complaints said Hann had rejected reports in three cases and had instructed medical panel members in two other cases to change information in their reports. No notice was sent to inform the parties in those five cases that there had been an original report that was rejected, according to the complaints.

In 2016, LaJeunesse’s case went to trial in 3rd District Court, where Judge Andrew Stone ruled in his favor, saying errors or differences of opinion “are not prejudicial to justice; they are something we expect on the way to truth.”

The judge also held that LaJeunesse “had a sound legal basis for the policy he had adopted,” and that his only purpose in permitting the return of medical reports was to correct errors in law or phrasing contained in them.

The bar appealed the ruling to the state Supreme Court.