Michael Molnar's attorney charges that a rival Fayette County architect wants to pursue his client into the grave because Molnar couldn't produce a college diploma for a disciplinary hearing, claiming it was quashed by a Communist regime.
But Mark N. Altman, whose father employed Molnar as a draftsman almost five decades ago, insists his complaint about Molnar's professional license focuses on the integrity of architectural licensing standards and administrative hearings in Pennsylvania.
Molnar, who started a firm in Uniontown after emigrating from Hungary, died May 12 at age 77.
The continuing scrutiny of Molnar's license makes for a rare legal situation as Altman has asked the state Supreme Court to hear his arguments despite Molnar's death, legal experts say.
Civil cases frequently involve substituting a party who has died, but they become moot when the relief sought from the court, such as stripping a professional license from a dead man, would have no practical effect, said Ralph Kates, a Luzerne County attorney and past chairman of the civil and equal rights committee of the Pennsylvania Bar Association.
A similar instance gained attention in Southwestern Pennsylvania last year, when an Indiana County judge denied requests from a slain dentist's family to grant his divorce from his estranged wife.
For the Supreme Court to accept the Molnar case, Altman will have to show that the case contains special circumstances that are likely to recur in other licensing matters, according to Pittsburgh lawyer John P. Gismondi.
"If the goal of the litigation is to stop Mike Molnar from practicing architecture, the good Lord has done that by taking him to the other side," said Gismondi.
Molnar's attorney, Robert B. Hoffman, likens Altman's complaint to Inspector Javert's hunting of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo's "Les Miserables."
He calls Altman's litigation "heartless" for its suggestion that Molnar's estate might even have a duty to return all professional fees he collected during his lifetime if the court agrees with Altman that Molnar's Pennsylvania license never was valid.
Molnar's widow, Rosemary Jendral, of Uniontown, declined an interview request.
"Petitioner is, it seems, motivated by some unexplained quest for revenge that he simply cannot end," Hoffman, of Harrisburg, argued in a motion to dismiss the case as moot because of Molnar's death. "(The Supreme Court) is not the forum to settle private grievances and grudges of that nature."
The Commonwealth Court in November upheld a decision by the state Architects Licensure Board to dismiss Altman's 2004 complaint alleging Molnar misrepresented his college career in his 1960 state licensing application.
As evidence for a hearing before a state examiner, Altman produced a 2003 sworn statement from Molnar's college -- now Budapest University of Technical and Economical Sciences -- that indicated it had no record of Molnar obtaining a diploma at its architecture or civil engineering departments.
Yet, the state examiner accepted Molnar's explanation that the communist government of Hungary would not grant him a diploma after four years of courses and a thesis.
Molnar then worked as an architectural engineer for the Hungarian Ministry of Defense and became involved in the Hungarian revolution against the Soviet Union in October 1956, fleeing the country when the Soviets overran Hungary a month later.
Although the college files "raise a substantial question" about Molnar's graduation, Molnar's testimony and documents provided "persuasive and convincing evidence" that he earned his degree, Frank Kahoe Jr., the hearing examiner, wrote in November 2005.
The findings stunned the Altman family.
Altman's brothers, Gary and Dan, are his legal counsel for the appeal.
"I think it shows that (Molnar) lied," Gary Altman said of the examiner's report. "You mean, if I'm a brain surgeon for 50 years, and after all these years they learn I'm an auto mechanic, I still can keep operating? That's fascinating to me."
In the appeals to the Commonwealth and Supreme courts, Altman includes the licensing board as a defendant with Molnar.
Altman contends the Department of State's Bureau of Professional and Occupational Affairs violates the state constitution by having a policy not to take appeals of dismissed complaints to the judicial branch.
Altman, whose father, H. Wesley, employed Molnar for less than two years in the early 1960s, argues that the issue of the validity of Molnar's license survives his death.
"The question is not the prospective revocation of (Molnar's) license, but the effect of his license being invalid from the date of its first issuance," Gary Altman said.
The Department of State, which oversees the licensing board, did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this story.
Michael Streib, a law professor at Duquesne University, called Altman's argument about the Department of State unusual because the state generally has discretion whether or not to investigate or prosecute a claim.
Streib said a lot of courts have looked at licensing as a revenue-raiser for the state and not as a qualification for performing a job.
"The mere fact that this guy may not have met qualifications doesn't mean the work was substandard," Streib said.
However, licensing cases usually do revolve around claims of shoddy work, according to Pittsburgh lawyer Effie Alexander.
She represented the family of slain Blairsville dentist John Yelenic Jr., who was killed on April 13, 2006 -- a day before he was to sign paperwork finalizing his divorce from Michele Yelenic.
In April 2007, the state Superior Court upheld a ruling last year by Indiana County Judge Carol Hanna that marriage ends at death.
"A man can no more be divorced after he is dead than he can be married or condemned to death," Hanna wrote in her July 2006 ruling. "... You cannot untie a knot which has already been untied."
Alexander said, in the Molnar case, revocation would seem unlikely without a claim of unjust enrichment.
"It just seems to me that the revocation of a license is to protect the public from atrocities of the individual, and that's moot if he's dead," she said.
According to court records, the only outstanding claim against Molnar from his professional career involves a renovation project at Hutchinson Elementary School in Laurel Highlands School District. McMillen Engineering sued Molnar last year, alleging his firm failed to pay $5,560, but Molnar's attorneys claimed McMillen didn't complete its required services.
That case is scheduled for arbitration.
Larger text
Smaller text
Print this article
E-mail this article
