This is an opinion of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee denying motions for summary judgment filed by the three law firms that represented Allied Waste in an underlying suit.
The underlying suit was filed after a waste facility owned by the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County (“Metro”) burned to the ground. Metro sued Allied and other defendants. The underlying case ended with a $7.2 million verdict against Allied.
SILVAGNI v. Shorr, 2015 PA Super 62 – Pa: Superior Court 2015 – Google Scholar.
This is a Pennsylvania decision affirming the dismissal of a legal malpractice case. The plaintiff alleged that his lawyer breached the duty of care by advising him to settle his workers’ compensation matter. Plaintiff also claimed that the lawyers gave him incorrect legal advice. But for that incorrect legal advice he would not have settled the case.
In the practice area, this is known as a bad deal case. Plaintiff agrees to settle a case and then regrets the settlement or believes that the settlement amount was too low. The complaint frequently contains an allegation that the lawyer pressured the client into the settlement.
QUAD CITY BANK & TRUST v. ELDERKIN & PIRNIE, PLC, Iowa: Court of Appeals 2015 – Google Scholar.
This is an unusual legal theory in a legal malpractice case. In the underlying case, the plaintiff bank brought a case against an accounting firm on the ground that the accounting firm had failed to detect improper transactions by one of the bank’s lending clients. The lending client had apparently falsified its inventory reports, leading the bank to believe that there was more inventory than in fact existed. The bank’s claim in the legal malpractice case was that had it received accurate information from the auditing firm, the bank would have been able to foreclose on the loan sooner and it would have mitigated its losses. The underlying case went poorly for the bank because the bank’s expert witness was barred from testifying at trial. The court summarized the facts as follows:
“The case against [the accounting firm] proceeded to trial, but [the accounting firm] successfully moved to have the bank’s sole expert witness excluded from testifying because the expert was not qualified to offer an opinion regarding the standard of care applicable to [the accounting firm]. See Quad City Bank & Trust v. Jim Kircher & Assocs., P.C., 804 N.W.2d 83, 93-94 (Iowa 2011) (upholding the district court’s ruling excluding the bank’s expert from testifying because he was not qualified to offer an opinion as to the applicable standard of care). The case proceeded to the jury, which returned a verdict in favor of [the accounting firm], and that verdict was upheld on appeal. Id.
2nd Circ. Holds JPMorgan To Faulty Mayer Brown Loan Deal – Law360.
The allegations are that Mayer Brown, which represented General Motors, drafted a release of JP Morgan’s UCC lien. JP Morgan did not object after the release of the lien was filed. Interestingly, the law firm that represented JP Morgan did not object to the documents prepared by Mayer Brown.
The Second Circuit, after a decision of the Delaware Supreme Court, held that JP Morgan lost is secured creditor status and became an unsecured creditor.
This case was decided by the Illinois Supreme Court in October 2014.
Plaintiffs alleged that the defendants committed legal malpractice when they failed to preserve a cause of action under the Illinois Securities Law against an investment firm. Plaintiffs alleged that the lawyers failed to file a rescission claim in a timely fashion causing it to be barred under the statute of limitations. A rescission claim allows the buyer to undo the purchase and obtain a refund of the purchase price. A complicating factor was the settlement of the underlying securities case for $3.2 million.
The main issue in the appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court was section 13(A) of the Illinois Securities Law, 815 ILCS 5/13(A) and how that section impacted the damage claim of the plaintiffs. That section provides:
In the appeal captioned, Stevens v. McGuirewoods, LLP, 2014 IL App (1st) 13-3952, the Illinois Appellate Court reversed a grant of summary judgment in favor of McGuirewoods. The Appellate Court held that the trial court erred in applying collateral estoppel to bar the claims.
In their complaint against McGuireWoods, the plaintiffs alleged that the law firm breached its fiduciary duty to plaintiffs by failing to assert claims against Sidley Austin LLP (Sidley). McGuireWoods moved for summary judgment on the ground that in the underlying case the trial judge ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue Sidley.
The plaintiffs were former minority shareholders of Beeland Management LLC. They hired McGuireWoods to bring both individual and derivative claims on their behalf and derivative claims on behalf of Beeland against Beeland’s managers and majority shareholder. In the litigation, the plaintiffs eventually sued Sidley for breach of fiduciary duty and other claims. (In a derivative claim, the shareholder stands in the shoes of the corporation and files a lawsuit against someone who has allegedly breached a duty to the corporation.).
The former Navy Seal who wrote a book on the Bin Laden raid has filed a legal malpractice lawsuit against his former lawyers. He alleges that the lawyers were negligent in failing to advise him that publishing the book would run afoul of government rules. The alleged errors may cost the former Navy Seal $4.5 million in royalties and the movie rights to the book.
Edward X. Clinton, Jr.
Dillon v. MURPHY & HOURIHANE, LLP, Dist. Court, ND California 2014 – Google Scholar.
The plaintiff brought the legal malpractice action in federal court in San Jose. The defendant law firm moved to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and, in the alternative, for transfer of the case to Illinois. The district judge denied both motions.
The court explained that the defendant had taken actions in California.
This is, unfortunately, an unpublished opinion, In re Marriage of Elizabeth W. Nesbitt and Bruce M. Nesbitt, 2014 IL App (1st) 131825-U.
After the parties divorce reached judgment, Bruce brought a legal malpractice action against his former lawyers for errors he alleged caused him to incur economic damages. Elizabeth then brought a Rule to Show Cause against Bruce on the ground that he had failed to pay her a share of the settlement. She alleged that the legal malpractice claim was marital property.
The court reasoned that Bruce did not discover the cause of action against his lawyers until the judgment of dissolution of marriage was entered. Therefore, the settlement was not marital property and Elizabeth did not have a valid claim to a share of the settlement proceeds.
Phinisee v. LAYSER, Dist. Court, ED Pennsylvania 2014 – Google Scholar.
One common claim against a lawyer is that he failed to obtain a good enough deal for his client. Here, the lawyers obtained $1.2 million for the plaintiff and her minor child in a lawsuit against the United States. After accepting the settlement, she filed suit for legal malpractice. Plaintiff was apparently unhappy about a Medicaid lien and the amount of the settlement. The district court dismissed the lawsuit on a motion to dismiss. The district court held that the claims were not negligence claims, but, rather claims that the amount of the settlement was insufficient, which are not valid claims under Pennsylvania law.
What the court is saying is that you need more than a bad result to allege legal malpractice. You need to allege some error by the lawyer. Here, plaintiff did not allege an error by the lawyer.
Chicago Legal Malpractice Lawyer Blog