In re Stewart: KRPC 8.4(c) Misrepresentation Requires Proof the Statement Adversely Reflects on Fitness to Practice Law

Court: Supreme Court of Kansas
Date: February 27, 2026
Disposition: Published censure (Original proceeding in discipline)

Introduction

In the Matter of Shawn E. Stewart arises from the Office of the Disciplinary Administrator’s (ODA) allegations that Stewart—a Kansas lawyer admitted in 2002—engaged in professional misconduct while applying for and maintaining Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) benefits during the COVID-19 emergency.

The disciplinary case turned on whether Stewart’s statements to the Kansas Department of Labor (KDOL), and related conduct, constituted “conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation” under KRPC 8.4(c). Stewart stipulated that his conduct violated KRPC 8.4(c), but the hearing panel found only one actionable misrepresentation: a negligent overstatement of 2019 “net” income on the PUA income questionnaire. The ODA challenged numerous factual and legal determinations and sought indefinite suspension; Stewart sought published censure.

Summary of the Opinion

The per curiam opinion also reaffirmed procedural standards governing disciplinary review: clear-and-convincing proof; the effect of exceptions to panel findings; and the court’s refusal to reweigh conflicting evidence or reassess credibility.

Analysis

1) Precedents Cited

A. Standard of review and treatment of panel findings

The court placed its review framework within a familiar line of Kansas discipline cases:

• In re Spiegel and Supreme Court Rule 226(a)(1)(A): attorney misconduct must be proven by clear and convincing evidence.
• In re Murphy: defines clear and convincing evidence as evidence making the asserted facts “highly probable.”
• In re Hodge: explains that an unexcepted-to finding is treated as admitted; if exception is taken, the Supreme Court independently tests whether the finding is supported by clear and convincing evidence.
• In re Solorio: reiterates the Supreme Court does not reweigh evidence, reassess credibility, or redetermine fact questions.

These precedents mattered because the ODA filed broad exceptions (challenging mental state, weekly statements, income issues, and aggravation), but the Supreme Court repeatedly invoked the “no reweighing/no credibility reassessment” rule to defer to the panel where the record was mixed or incomplete.

B. Stipulations, legal conclusions, and the court’s independent duty

• In re Gamble and Wolfe Electric, Inc. v. Duckworth: parties’ stipulations to facts can be powerful, but stipulations to conclusions of law (including “this violates KRPC X”) do not bind the court.

This principle framed the court’s approach to Stewart’s own stipulation of a KRPC 8.4(c) violation: the court still had to locate clear and convincing evidentiary support for the violation under the controlling legal standard.

C. The meaning of “misrepresentation” and mental state under KRPC 8.4(c)

• In re Sutton: central to the panel and per curiam reasoning that “misrepresentation” under KRPC 8.4(c) can be grounded in negligence—i.e., “inaccuracy is not necessarily indicative of dishonesty,” but negligent inaccuracy may still be a “misrepresentation.”
• In re Buckner (quoting In re Obert): used by the panel (and discussed by the court) to distinguish the mental-state demands embedded in KRPC 8.4(c)’s cluster of terms—fraud/deceit requiring intent to deceive, “dishonesty” involving a disposition to “lie, cheat or defraud,” while “misrepresentation” may not require intent.

These authorities influenced the court’s rejection of the ODA’s attempt to elevate Stewart’s income-statement misconduct from negligence to intentional dishonesty. The court treated “intent” (in the ABA Standards sense) as a distinct evidentiary showing and found the record supported negligence given form ambiguity, timing (no filed 2019 return at application), and testimony describing estimating “without reading” carefully.

D. Discipline for conduct outside client representation

The court relied on rule and case authority establishing that discipline reaches beyond the attorney-client relationship:

• Supreme Court Rule 203(a) and Supreme Court Rule 203(b) (discipline can be based on personal/professional conduct, even outside an attorney-client relationship).
• In re Mintz (dishonest conduct outside the practice of law can violate KRPC).
• In re Kline (discipline for conduct outside the profession if it “functionally relates” to the practice of law).
• In re Frahm (conduct can reflect adversely on fitness because it diminishes “trust and confidence” the public places in lawyers).

These citations mattered because Stewart’s core misrepresentation was made to a government agency in a benefits context, not in litigation or direct client work. The court treated that as within disciplinary reach.

E. Sanctioning misstatements connected to reporting income to government

• In re Busch: cited for the proposition that dishonest conduct involving income reporting can harm the public and cause “actual harm to the legal profession.”

While Busch involved criminal conduct (as the per curiam opinion notes), it supplied an analogical baseline: government-facing misstatements connected to an attorney’s financial obligations and integrity can warrant serious professional consequences even when not directly connected to client representation.

F. Aggravating/mitigating-factor evidentiary threshold

• In re Hall: the panel need not find aggravators/mitigators by clear and convincing evidence, but there must be “some evidence” to weigh.

This precedent shaped the per curiam response to the ODA’s claimed aggravators (dishonest/selfish motive; pattern). The court largely accepted the panel’s view that, given the limited proven misconduct (one negligent income misstatement), those aggravators did not fit.

G. Separate-opinion precedents (illustrating the court’s fault lines)

Several additional authorities appear in the separate writings and illuminate the jurisprudential divide:

• Hays v. Ruther and Martin v. Davis (Justice Biles: the Supreme Court’s exclusive constitutional authority over the practice of law and discipline).
• Kansas Judicial Review v. Stout and In re Lietz Const. Co. (Justice Biles: interpretive canons applied to Supreme Court rules).
• State v. Smith (Justice Biles: courts should not “supply vital omissions” in text).
• City of Wichita v. Trotter, Lumry v. State, and State v. Puckett (Justice Biles: concern about changing interpretive requirements without party briefing).
• State v. Sherman, State v. Reynolds, Hilburn v. Enerpipe Ltd., Bergstrom v. Spears Manufacturing Co., and Casco v. Armour Swift-Eckrich (Justice Biles: stare decisis and the need for explicit overruling analysis).
• In re Morton and In re Pyle (Justice Stegall: examples where not all inaccuracies/misrepresentations should trigger KRPC 8.4(c) consequences).

Collectively, these citations highlight that Stewart is as much about the architecture of disciplinary authority and interpretive methodology as it is about one attorney’s benefits application.

2) Legal Reasoning

A. The court’s new two-prong requirement for misrepresentation-based KRPC 8.4(c) charges

The most consequential doctrinal move is the “second majority” holding: to prove a KRPC 8.4 violation “on the basis of an alleged misrepresentation,” the ODA must prove (1) the misrepresentation occurred and (2) it adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law—both by clear and convincing evidence.

This requirement does two things at once:

• It constrains the reach of “misrepresentation” as a disciplinary trigger (distinguishing it from ordinary human error and arguably from trivial inaccuracies).
• It re-centers discipline on “fitness” as the normative core—consistent with the opinion’s later discussion (Rule 203; Mintz, Kline, Frahm) that discipline is justified where conduct diminishes public trust and confidence in lawyers.

The opinion is candid that this rule is produced by shifting majorities and differing rationales; nonetheless, the per curiam explicitly states this as what the court “ultimately” holds, making it the decision’s key precedential output.

B. Finding a negligent misrepresentation (and limiting it to one)

The court upheld the panel’s conclusion that Stewart negligently misrepresented his 2019 income when he self-reported $120,000 in personal income for 2019 on the PUA application, while his later-filed 2019 tax return reflected personal income of $36,722.

The court’s negligence determination turned on evidentiary context:

• the PUA forms used undefined terms (“wages,” “income,” “gross income,” “net income”);
• KDOL’s own witness said the gross/net distinction was a “common point of misunderstanding for a lot of PUA applicants”;
• Stewart had not yet filed the 2019 return at the time he applied (May 2020; return filed October 2020);
• the record did not clearly show Stewart connected his later tax information to his earlier PUA estimate in time to correct it.

C. Rejecting additional alleged misrepresentations (weekly “work” and “income,” and the “only client shut down” statement)

A separate majority affirmed the panel’s refusal to find other KRPC 8.4(c) violations. The court’s reasoning was less an endorsement of Stewart’s conduct than an insistence on the ODA’s burden and on evidentiary completeness.

• “Only client shut down” statement: the ODA did not prove by clear and convincing evidence that the client was not shut down by COVID-19; the contingency-fee arrangement did not necessarily contradict a claim of pandemic-caused loss of future work.
• Weekly “work” certifications: the forms did not define “work,” and the panel received no evidence clarifying whether the work Stewart admitted to doing constituted the reportable “work” KDOL meant for self-employed professionals (particularly in a contingency-fee context).
• Weekly “income/compensation” certifications: the record showed significant payments to the law firm (gross receipts) but did not clearly establish Stewart’s personal income during 2020–2021 because the ODA did not introduce the firm’s expenses or 2020/2021 tax returns, and testimony about “actualizing” firm funds was equivocal and contradictory.

D. Sanction selection: why published censure rather than indefinite suspension

The court adopted published censure, aligning with the panel’s recommendation and referencing ABA Standard 5.13 (“Reprimand is generally appropriate when a lawyer knowingly engages in any other conduct that involves dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation and that adversely reflects on the lawyer's fitness to practice law.”).

The opinion’s sanction rationale emphasizes:

• discipline applies to conduct outside representation (Rule 203; Mintz, Kline);
• income-related misstatements to government can harm the public and the profession (In re Busch);
• Stewart’s own admissions about alcoholism, impaired functioning, and indifference at the time supported the view that the misrepresentation adversely reflected on fitness;
• mitigation: no prior discipline, cooperation, remorse, restitution efforts/repayment plan, and sustained sobriety with KALAP/AA support.

The court’s refusal to impose indefinite suspension thus reflects a calibrated response: recognizing the public-integrity stakes of government-facing misrepresentation, but limiting the sanction in light of negligence findings and substantial mitigation.

3) Impact

A. A new evidentiary burden for the ODA in misrepresentation-based KRPC 8.4(c) charges

The decision’s most practical effect is litigation-shaping: in future KRPC 8.4(c) matters framed as “misrepresentation,” the ODA must prove not only falsity (or misleadingness) but also that the misrepresentation adversely reflects on fitness to practice law. That second prong is likely to generate:

• more targeted charging decisions (distinguishing trivial inaccuracies from fitness-implicating misstatements);
• more explicit panel findings on how the misstatement affects fitness, especially in non-client contexts;
• more structured evidentiary presentations on materiality, reliance, public harm, breach of trust, and nexus to legal professional characteristics.

B. Recalibrating “misrepresentation” away from strict liability, without eliminating negligence-based discipline

The per curiam opinion reaffirms (via In re Sutton) that negligent misrepresentation can violate KRPC 8.4(c). But the new fitness prong functions as a limiting principle: negligence alone is not necessarily enough; the misrepresentation must still carry a clear-and-convincing “fitness” implication.

This is likely to matter most in administrative and personal contexts where:

• forms are ambiguous;
• terminology is technical (net vs. gross; personal vs. entity income);
• the record is incomplete (missing returns, missing expense evidence);
• the alleged misstatement did not drive a clearly quantified or causally connected benefit.

C. Incentives for record development (especially in “income” and entity-structure cases)

Stewart illustrates an evidentiary lesson: where misconduct theory depends on “income,” “compensation,” or “personal benefit,” proof may require:

• tax returns for relevant years;
• business expense evidence;
• entity-structure proof (LLC vs. sole proprietorship; draws vs. wages);
• timeline proof (when the lawyer knew what, and what correction opportunities existed).

The ODA’s failure to supply some of this proof was pivotal to the court’s refusal to find additional weekly-form violations.

D. Doctrinal tension and future clarification

The separate opinions reveal unresolved interpretive conflict: whether KRPC 8.4(c)’s text permits adding a “fitness” element (Justice Biles: no; Justices Stegall/Wall and Justice Luckert: yes). That tension suggests future cases may:

• test the boundaries of what counts as “adversely reflect[ing] on fitness”;
• require clarification whether the “fitness” element applies only to “misrepresentation” theories or more broadly within 8.4(c);
• trigger rulemaking debates (explicitly suggested in Justice Biles’ writing).

Complex Concepts Simplified

Clear and convincing evidence

This is a high proof standard (higher than “more likely than not,” lower than “beyond a reasonable doubt”): the fact must be “highly probable” (In re Murphy).

“Exceptions” to the hearing panel report

If a party does not “except” to a finding, it is treated as admitted. If a party files exceptions, the Supreme Court independently tests whether the finding is supported by clear and convincing evidence—but still does not reweigh evidence or redo credibility judgments (In re Hodge; In re Solorio).

Negligence vs. intent in KRPC 8.4(c)

“Dishonesty,” “fraud,” and “deceit” commonly imply intent to mislead. “Misrepresentation” can occur through careless inaccuracy—negligence—under Kansas precedent (In re Sutton) and the panel’s reliance on In re Buckner (quoting In re Obert).

Published censure

A public reprimand published in the Kansas Reports. It is serious discipline but less severe than suspension. Here, the court treated it as fitting for a negligent, fitness-implicating misrepresentation, especially given mitigation and rehabilitation efforts.

ABA Standard 5.13

A guidepost for sanctions: reprimand/censure is generally appropriate when dishonest conduct adversely reflects on fitness. The court used this standard to support the sanction and to explain why the proven misrepresentation mattered to professional fitness.

Conclusion

In re Stewart establishes a consequential refinement to Kansas attorney-discipline doctrine: when the ODA prosecutes a KRPC 8.4(c) matter on a “misrepresentation” theory, it must prove by clear and convincing evidence both the misrepresentation and that it adversely reflects on the lawyer’s fitness to practice law.

Applying that framework, the court affirmed a single negligent income misrepresentation on a COVID-era benefits application, rejected additional alleged misrepresentations for lack of clear-and-convincing proof, and imposed published censure—grounded in the principle that government-facing misstatements about income can undermine public trust in the legal profession, but also tempered by substantial mitigation and demonstrated rehabilitation.