Default Judgment Sought in Fraud Suit Against Attorney : Courts: Lawyer accused of wrongfully obtaining $3.5 million from an elderly client’s estate is allegedly not obeying an order to produce documents, answer questions.

Laguna Hills lawyer James D. Gunderson is not complying with a court order requiring him to produce documents and answer questions about cases in which he took gifts or bequests from his clients, according to documents filed in Orange County Superior Court.

Attorneys for relatives of a 98-year-old Leisure World man who bequeathed $3.5 million to Gunderson last year filed a motion advising Judge James L. Smith that Gunderson has not complied with the judge’s June 28 order and asking that the judge enter a default judgment awarding them the money and legal fees they are seeking in their lawsuit.

Relatives of Merrill A. Miller have claimed that Gunderson, 68, committed fraud and exercised undue influence in getting his elderly client to sign a will and trust that together left him $3.5 million and made other beneficiaries of Miller’s $18-million estate liable for an estimated $2 million in taxes he normally would have incurred.

The relatives said in court papers that Miller was both blind and bedridden when Gunderson arranged for him to sign his will only weeks before his death.

Acting on a motion submitted by the relatives’ attorneys, Judge Smith in Orange County Superior Court ruled June 28 that Gunderson must disclose details of inheritances he has received under the terms of wills and trusts he prepared for elderly Leisure World clients.

The judge then ordered Gunderson and his daughter and law partner, Linda Gunderson, to pay sanctions of $1,000 each for refusing to answer questions about the $3.5-million bequest.

Since June 28, the relatives’ attorneys--John H. Westover, and his son, William H. Westover, both of Phoenix--have made three unsuccessful attempts to get Gunderson to comply with the court order, according to court documents.

The Westovers filed copies of three separate letters sent to Gunderson’s attorney, Barry Michaelson of Santa Ana, seeking 37 clients’ files which the Westovers contend will show that Gunderson had received numerous gifts from the estates of other clients and would undermine Gunderson’s argument that he was a personal friend of Miller and entitled to the bequest.

“Mr. Michaelson has not responded in any way to the attempts . . . to seek compliance with this court’s order,” William Westover said in a memorandum filed in court. “It is obvious that the failure to comply with the court’s order is due to the recalcitrance of . . . Gunderson, not that of his lawyer.”

The Times disclosed last November that Gunderson had received sizable bequests from his clients despite a state Supreme Court ruling that anything more than a “modest” bequest to an individual’s attorney raises questions of impropriety. Gunderson has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Apart from the $3.5-million bequest from Miller, Gunderson received, among other gifts, AT&T; stock worth almost $250,000 from a woman who had been diagnosed as suffering from senile dementia; virtually all of a Leisure World man’s $427,000 estate, including a 316-acre farm in Fresno County; and a mortgage that ultimately gave him title to one square mile of land in San Bernardino County.

Gunderson’s law practice, which is located just outside the gates of the 22,000-resident Leisure World retirement community in Laguna Hills, has since come under investigation by the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, the State Bar of California and the Orange County Bar Assn.

Gunderson’s receipt of gifts has also spurred state lawmakers to propose legislation that would restrict lawyers from making themselves beneficiaries of their clients’ estates. The Legislature is expected to give final approval to the bill this week.

Aside from the proposed legislation, the State Bar is proposing to add to its rules of professional conduct a stipulation forbidding lawyers from preparing wills or trusts that bequeath them gifts.