Sean O’Neil Kinghorn

Findings — machine-extracted (anthropic-batch:claude-opus-4-8); verify against the decision

Attorney Sean Kinghorn was retained around 2004 by Thomas Rose to bring a personal injury claim from a 2001 accident. The attorney filed the claim and it was served on the first defendant, but failed to keep the client informed of progress and showed a want of expedition between 2004 and 2008, when the client retrieved his papers. The Committee, proceeding in the attorney's absence (he never attended despite proper notice), found the complaint proved beyond reasonable doubt and a breach of Canon IV(r). No dishonesty was found. The attorney was fined JMD 600,000 (JMD 500,000 payable to the complainant as part satisfaction of damages under s.12(5)) and ordered to pay costs of JMD 6,000.

Duties found breached:

• Good faith and courtesy to colleagues

Aggravating factors:

• Egregious failure to communicate with the client
• Failure to provide a written explanation about the status of the case
• Failure to attend or respond to the complaint

Mitigating factors:

• Client retrieved his papers in 2008 and may still have salvaged some benefit from the claim filed

⚠ figures not found verbatim in the source were dropped: ["unverified_fine_amount=600000"]