The issue that arises often in litigation is: when was the plaintiff put on notice that the lawyer may have breached the duty of care? The answer to this question often determines whether or not the statute of limitations bars a claim. A case decided by the Delaware Supreme Court…
On June 30, 2020, the Missouri Supreme Court decided Laughlin v. Perry and Flotman, No. SC98012. The court held that the defendants, two public defenders, were immune from suit because public defenders are state employees performing discretionary acts. In Laughlin’s case, the two public defenders missed a jurisdictional problem with…
The case of Breitenstein v. Deters, 19 -cv-413 (S.D. Ohio Western Division) is unusual. Plaintiff retained the Defendant lawyers to represent her in a medical malpractice case. The underlying case was dismissed, but the plaintiff appealed that decision. While the appeal was pending, she sued her lawyers for legal malpractice.…
Whether or not a case is barred by the statute of limitations in the legal malpractice context is not a matter of science, but rather of art. Indeed, you may think the case you filed was timely and a thoughtful defense lawyer will use the facts to creatively argue that…
The opinion in Lloyd’s Syndicate 2987 v. Furman, Kornfeld & Brennan, LLP, 2020 NY Slip Op 02365 is pithy but worth considering. Apparently the law firm advised an insurance company that it could deny coverage to a policyholder. That decision proved to be in error and the insurance company sued…
This is another very important and recurring issue in the legal malpractice field. Most states have a rule that provides that a criminal defendant cannot sue his former attorney unless he establishes that he is actually innocent. Texas prefers the term “exoneration.” This year the Texas Supreme Court, in Gray…
One defense in a legal malpractice case is that the lawyer exercised judgment (usually at trial) and, therefore, he should not be liable for legal malpractice. One way to explain this is to make an analogy to the role of a baseball manager. In my example, the manager’s team is…
In Moreton Binn v. Muchnick, Golieb and Golieb, P.C. 2020 NY Slip Op 02020, the plaintiffs sued their lawyers for allegedly poor advice causing them to lose majority control of a series of corporations they owned. The court rejected the claims for a variety of reasons. First, some claims were…
The case, Herren v. Armenta, No. 1-CA-CV-18-0381 (Arizona Court of Appeals January 14, 2020) is a legal malpractice case where Herren lost her underlying case, a business dispute. As we shall see, despite evidence of negligence she also lost the legal malpractice case. In the underlying matter, Herren hired Armenta…
This video contains a short discussion of why we may reject a case.