## Facts

- Maria T. Geisler represented Milton F. McNealy in a Louisville personal-injury action arising from a November 1993 pedestrian-auto collision.
- Defense counsel P. Kevin Ford noticed McNealy’s deposition; Geisler reported McNealy was too ill to be deposed, and no deposition occurred.
- McNealy died on January 26, 1995 while the case was pending.
- After McNealy’s death, Geisler contacted Ford to pursue settlement and negotiated offers and counteroffers without disclosing the death.
- The parties reached a settlement on February 9, 1995.
- McNealy’s son was appointed estate administrator on February 23, 1995.
- Ford sent settlement documents and a settlement check to Geisler on March 13, 1995; the administrator executed and returned the documents on March 22, 1995.
- Ford first learned of McNealy’s death upon receiving the executed settlement documents; he submitted an agreed dismissal order, which the court signed and entered.
- Ford filed a bar complaint alleging Geisler failed to advise him of McNealy’s death during the settlement-negotiation period.
- The KBA charged Geisler with violating SCR 3.130-4.1 (false statement of material fact or law to a third person); the Board of Governors found a violation based on nondisclosure and recommended a private reprimand.
- The Supreme Court of Kentucky reviewed on its own motion whether the conduct fell within SCR 3.130-4.1.

## Issues

1. Whether an attorney violates SCR 3.130-4.1 by failing to disclose a client’s death to opposing counsel during settlement negotiations when the attorney makes no express misrepresentation.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Kentucky disapproved the Board of Governors’ Rule 4.1 violation finding.
- The Court held Geisler’s nondisclosure of the client’s death, without an affirmative false statement, did not violate SCR 3.130-4.1.
- The Court declined to impose the recommended private reprimand under SCR 3.130-4.1.
- The Court issued a published opinion to address the professional risks and expectations implicated by negotiating after a client’s death.

## Legal Principles

- SCR 3.130-4.1 prohibits affirmative “false statement[s] of material fact or law” to third persons in representation; it does not, by its text, impose a general duty to volunteer all material facts in negotiations.
- Silence or nondisclosure, absent a direct inquiry or affirmative misrepresentation, is not treated as a “false statement” within SCR 3.130-4.1.
- Questions about the enforceability or consequences of a settlement reached after a client’s death are addressed primarily through other doctrines (e.g., authority to act, substitution and survival rules, and related civil remedies), not by expanding Rule 4.1 beyond false statements.
- Although not disciplined under Rule 4.1, negotiating without disclosing a client’s death may undermine justified assumptions about a lawyer’s authority and can expose the matter to later challenge.

## Conclusion

The court held that SCR 3.130-4.1 reaches false statements, not mere nondisclosure, and therefore an attorney’s failure to volunteer that a client has died during settlement negotiations—without an explicit misrepresentation—does not constitute a Rule 4.1 violation, even though the conduct may be professionally problematic and legally risky under other rules.


Kentucky Bar Ass'n v. Geisler, 938 S.W.2d 578 (Ky. 1997)