In re Disbarment of Philbrook

Horace W. Philbrook, a licensed attorney, having filed in this court a certain brief, in which he appeared to have violated his duty as an attorney, was cited to appear before the court on the seventeenth day of December, a. d. 1894, at 10 o’clock a. m., to show cause why he should not be removed from his office as an attorney at law, and disbarred from further practicing law before the courts of this state. The citation was served on him ten days previous to said December 17th. On said day he appeared, and as he did not ask any continuance, but announced himself ready, the matter was proceeded with. A committee from the Bar Association of San Francisco requested to be allowed to appear “ for the purpose of seeing that said matter is properly presented,” and their request was granted. The respondent, Phil-brook, filed a written answer to the citation, and he was allowed to make an oral argument in his own defense, without restriction of time, his argument occupying the greater part of two days. The committee of the Bar As7 sociation argued that he should be disbarred. In the citation attention was called to certain pages of the brief which contained the objectionable matter, and a…

My views of this case differ in some particulars from those of my associates.

It was not because of Mr. Philbrook’s assault upon a member of this court—gross and unjustifiable as I deemed it to be—that I joined in the order citing him to show cause. So far as that part of his offense was concerned I should have waited until the final determination of the appeal in Rankin v. Newman, before deciding what, if any, action it was necessary or proper to take.

But, as is clearly shown in the opinion of the court (In re Philbrook), Mr. Philbrook did not confine himself to an assault upon Justice Harrison in his character of attorney for Levinson’s executor, and as advisor and participant in the settlement of the executor with the surviving partners. He went much further: he distinctly threatened the other members of the court with public infamy and disgrace if they did not decide the cause of Rankin v. Newman in his favor. This he did, not only in the express terms of that part of his brief set forth in the citation, but indirectly and by every sort of implication through page after page of that portion of his brief to which his attention was directed by the reference to said pages.

In…