Constitutional Law
Conn. Lawyers to Sue State Officials Over $2M Transfer from Client Security Fund
Posted Mar 30, 2009, 05:15 pm CST
By Martha Neil
The state of Connecticut is being sued by a group of prominent lawyers over its plan to transfer $2 million from the Client Security Fund to resolve a budget shortfall, eliminating the financial cushion that would otherwise be provided for potential claims of lawyer misconduct.
The transfer is unconstitutional, according to the Connecticut Bar Association and individual lawyers named as plaintiffs, because it takes money paid by the state's 36,000 lawyers specifically for the Client Security Fund and treats it as general tax revenue, reports the Hartford Courant.
"The payments made to the fund by [lawyers] were not levied or collected by the legislative department, were not assessed, paid or collected as a tax, and cannot retroactively be expropriated as tax revenues for deposit in the general fund," states the suit. It was served on state officials, including Gov. M. Jodi Rell, today, but will filed tomorrow, on a class-action basis, in state superior court in Hartford, the newspaper reports.
A spokesman for the governor declined to comment.
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