Request By:
Mr. Arthur R. DeWitt
Director of Courts
Jefferson Circuit Court
Jefferson Hall of Justice
Louisville, Kentucky 40202
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Richard L. Masters, Assistant Attorney General
You have requested an Opinion of this Office concerning the construction of KRS 24A.240(1), which provides that the appearance of an attorney at law on behalf of any party is permitted but not required in Small Claims Court; and you ask whether or not this same statutory provision applies to a corporation.
Our answer to this question is based on two separate considerations. First, the definition of the term "party", which is set out in KRS 24A.210(2), specifies that a "party" is "any person, natural or otherwise, who has been a party to the transaction in dispute." (Emphasis added.) This definition of the term "party", as applied to KRS 24A.240(1), would seem to indicate that KRS 24A.240(1) should be construed as permitting but not requiring the appearance of an attorney at law on behalf of a corporation since the term "party" refers to any person, natural or otherwise.
However, the question then arises as to who is authorized to appear on behalf of a corporation in the Small Claims Division of the District Court since, obviously, a corporation could not appear on its own behalf
An Unauthorized Practice Opinion (U-20), issued by the Ethics Committee of the Kentucky Bar Association and reported in the July 1980 issue of the Kentucky Bench & Bar, indicated that an appearance on behalf of a corporation in the Small Claims Division of the District Court would be construed as the unauthorized practice of law. However, this Opinion was superseded by an amendment to Supreme Court Rule 3.020, effective November 1, 1978, which permits an appearance in the Small Claims Division of the District Court by a person who is an officer of or who is regularly employed in a managerial capacity by a corporation or partnership which is a party to the litigation in which the appearance is made without engaging in the unauthorized practice of law.
Thus, your question can be answered in the affirmative in that an attorney at law may but is not required to appear in Small Claims Court on behalf of a corporation. Pursuant to SCR 3.020, any person appearing for a corporation in the Small Claims Division of the District Court who is not an attorney must be an officer of, or regularly employed in a managerial capacity by, the corporation which is a party to the litigation.