Mills v. Statewide Grievance Committee

The plaintiff attorney appealed from the judgment of the Appellate Court, which had upheld the trial court's dismissal of his appeal from a reprimand issued by the reviewing committee of the defendant, the Statewide Grievance Committee. The reviewing committee found, inter alia, that the plaintiff had violated, among other rules, rule 8.2 (a) of the Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibits an attorney from making statements concerning the qualifications or integrity of a judge that the attorney knows to be false or with reckless disregard as to the truth or falsity of those statements. The statements at issue appeared in a motion the plaintiff filed, in which he asserted, inter alia, that certain Probate and Superior Court judges who had presided over a lengthy fee dispute between the plaintiff and another attorney were unwilling "to analyze the facts and the law," issued decisions with no "meaningful jurisprudence," and "totally disregarded" the appli- cable law. On appeal to this court, the plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that the Appellate Court had improperly upheld the trial court's dismissal of his appeal from the reprimand because the reviewing committee's finding that he had violated rule 8.2 (a) was clearly erroneous and because he satisfied his burden of producing evidence of his objective, reasonable belief that his statements were true. Held: The Appellate Court properly upheld the trial court's dismissal of the plain- tiff's appeal from the reprimand, as the reviewing committee's finding that the plaintiff had made statements with reckless disregard as to their truth or falsity was supported by clear and convincing evidence and, therefore, was not clearly erroneous. The record demonstrated that the judges the plaintiff criticized provided meaningful and legally supported decisions addressing the plaintiff's claims regarding the fee dispute and that the plaintiff's statements did not com- port with the complex factual and procedural history of the fee dispute and instead were grounded in rumor, speculation, and apparent frustration with decisions that were not in his favor. Moreover, the reviewing committee's decision made clear that it considered the lengthy fee dispute proceedings in deciding whether the plaintiff violated rule 8.2 (a) and weighed what actually occurred during those proceedings against the plaintiff's assertion that the judges whom he criticized had deprived the plaintiff of due process by wilfully refusing to apply the law. Furthermore, the plaintiff failed to satisfy his burden of producing any evidence of an objective, reasonable belief that his statements were true, as 2 Mills v. Statewide Grievance Committee the record belied the plaintiff's claims that the judges who were the subject of his statements were less than diligent in their adjudication of the fee dis- pute, and the purported errors on which the plaintiff relied were insufficient to satisfy his burden of demonstrating that the judges had intentionally disregarded the law. (Two justices dissenting in one opinion) Argued October 31, 2025—officially released April 7, 2026

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