Boston Legal Malpractice Lawyer

An appellate court in California has affirmed a motion for summary judgment granted in favor of an attorney in a legal malpractice action. In Lewellen v. Phillips, a woman alleged that her lawyer committed malpractice for inadequately representing her at a settlement conference in a property dispute. At the conference, the woman signed an agreement consenting to a 70/30 split of the proceeds from the sale of the property. A few days later, the woman decided she was no longer willing to settle. However, the court confirmed the settlement agreement and the appellate court upheld the trail court’s decision.

The woman then sued the attorney claiming he failed to obtain her informed consent and “badgered” her into signing the agreement. The attorney subsequently filed a motion for summary judgment, which the trial court granted. The woman then appealed the ruling.

The appellate court found that the attorney had adequately explained the settlement agreement to the woman, and also had presented her with various settlement options before the conference. The attorney had also informed the woman that he did not recommend the settlement, but she feared proceeding with a trial. In light of the evidence, the appellate court found that there was not a triable issue of fact and summary judgment for the attorney was appropriate.

Decision: Lewellen v. Phillips

Continue reading

After reviewing an interlocutory order, a Pennsylvania appellate court has ruled in favor of a client in a legal malpractice action. In Epstein v. Saul Ewing, LLP., a client sued his former attorney for negligently handling his appeal of an adverse judgment.

The underlying case involved a fee dispute between a client, her attorney and a referred attorney handling a civil rights case. The referring attorney was the guardian ad litem for a foster child who had been placed in an abusive foster home. The civil rights resulted in a settlement and a legal fee of nearly 1.3 million dollars. The referring attorney claimed that she was entitled to 1/3 of the fee. A trial judge ruled in favor of the referring attorney, and ordered the client to pay $430,000 in legal fees, and an additional $645,000 in punitive damages.

The client appealed and hired another attorney who submitted a brief, containing 104 separate issues on appeal. The appellate court dismissed the appeal due to the “preposterous number of issued identified”, which significantly impeded the court’s ability to assess the case, also finding that most of the issues had been waived.

Continue reading

A California appellate court has affirmed a jury verdict for an attorney in a legal malpractice claim. In

Tong v Rucker a client alleged that her new attorney negligently represented her in a malpractice suit against her old lawyer. In the first case, the client had attempted to back out of a settlement she had reached with the old attorney, but the court enforced the settlement agreement. At the trial against the new attorney, the jury gave a verdict in favor of the new attorney, finding that the client had not successfully proved causation.

The client appealed the jury verdict, claiming that the trial court allowed jurors to discuss the case prior to deliberation. In fact, the record showed that the trial judge had repeatedly instructed the jury that the jurors were not permitted to discuss the case until they began deliberations. The judge had mentioned that it was permissible for jurors to discuss a case while it was ongoing in some jurisdictions, but made it clear that this was not the law in California.

Continue reading

The Appellate Court of Connecticut has affirmed a trial court judgment for an attorney in a legal malpractice claim. In
Law Offices of Robert K Walsh v Natarajan, the attorney had sued his former client for his fees representing her in a marital dissolution proceeding. The client had counterclaimed for legal malpractice because the attorney successfully moved to withdrawal on the eve of trial.

In the divorce case, it appeared the client had reached a settlement with her former spouse. However, when they appeared in court to finalize the settlement, the client refused to proceed. The attorney then successfully moved to withdraw from the case. The client then represented herself at trial.

Continue reading

A Florida District Court of Appeal has reversed a lower court’s denial of an attorney’s motion seeking dismissal of a legal malpractice action due to improper venue. The client, a Tennessee corporation, was a defendant in a federal court action in Orlando, Florida. The client had hired an attorney to act as local counsel, who neglected to file a responsive pleading in the case, which resulted in a $4 million default judgment against the client.

In attempting to resurrect the case, a principal of the corporation and its other attorney had prepared and filed a false affidavit, which the principal later relied upon in giving testimony in support of a motion to vacate the default judgment. The federal court nonetheless denied the motion. The client then filed a legal malpractice action against its local counsel in state court in Brevard County, maintaining that venue was proper there because the improper conduct of the attorney involving the false affidavit had taken place in that county.

Continue reading

The Florida Court of Appeals has ruled that a lower court dismissal of a legal malpractice action was properly dismissed, but the dismissal should have been without prejudice, permitting the plaintiffs to re-file the action. A corporation had sued its attorneys for negligence and added a consultant as an additional plaintiff, on a third party beneficiary theory.

The law firm moved to dismiss because of deficiencies in the complaint and claiming that the consultant lacked standing. The Appeals Court upheld the lower court dismissal, finding that the complaint “lack[ed] minimal organization and coherence” and was so poorly written that it failed to meet minimum pleading requirements.

Continue reading

The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court recently decided that a successor-in-interest’s legal malpractice claim did not relate back to an action filed 13 years earlier by the predecessor’s chief partner. The original action arose from a 1996 property refinance. An attorney with the law firm, which had represented the borrower in the refinancing negotiations with the lender, neglected to file a consent order with the bankruptcy court, which had jurisdiction over the borrower at the time.

The Order was particularly significant to the lender, who intended to sell the mortgage to a third party, because it would have resulted in dismissal of the bankruptcy proceedings. The borrower eventually defaulted on the loan and commenced dissolution proceedings. A third party succeeded to its assets and thereby became acquired the legal malpractice cause of action.

Prior to the dissolution, one of the borrower partners had filed a malpractice suit against the attorneys who neglected to submit the consent order. That case was initially dismissed due to lack of standing, but the court then permitted the partner to sue on behalf of the borrower. In 2008, eleven years later, after a string of dismissals and appeals, an appellate court determined that the partner indeed lacked standing, which allowed the borrower’s successor to proceed with the claim.

Continue reading

The District of Columbia Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court’s ruling decision that the negligence of a law firm prevented a client from prevailing in an employment discrimination case. The client sued his former attorneys for legal malpractice when they failed to follow a judge’s order to respond to a motion in an discrimination action against the client’s former employer.

The attorneys filed a complaint, alleging that the client’s former boss told him he was too old to perform his job, terminated him shortly thereafter and replaced him with a younger worker. The employer filed a motion to dismiss the complaint, to which the attorneys never responded, even after a judge ordered them to file a response. The case was dismissed with prejudice, giving rise to the malpractice action.

A trial took place on the legal malpractice claim, resulting in a $230,000 jury verdict for the client. The attorneys appealed, claiming that any negligence was not the proximate cause of any damages suffered by the client. The legal issue was whether or not a reasonable jury could find, based on the evidence, that the attorneys’ negligence prevented Ross from winning his discrimination case.

Continue reading