Yesterday, we spoke about commercial litigation, intra-company claims and how minority shareholders can bring claims that attorneys for the corporation or the majority shareholders have wronged them.  Yesterday, it was “legal malpractice.”  Today it’s “breach of fiduciary duty.”

Exeter Law Group LLP v Wong  2016 NY Slip Op 32425(U)  December 9, 2016 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: 161667/2014 Judge: Eileen A. Rakower.

“A client can state a claim for breach of fiduciary duty against an attorney by alleging “the existence of a fiduciary relationship, misconduct by the defendant, and damages that were caused by the defendant’s misconduct.” (Harbor Consultants Ltd. v Roth, 907 N.Y.S.2d 100, 100 [N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2010]). “As a fiduciary, an attorney is charged with a high degree of undivided loyalty to his [or her] client.” (Harbor Consultants, 907 N.Y.S.2d at 100). The second counterclaim alleges that Exeter and Wong, as the attorney of Day, Eisner, Immortalana and Salvaragen, “owed them a duty of undivided and undiluted loyalty” and “were required to keep certain information privileged and confidential.” It alleges that Exeter and Wong breached their fiduciary duty to them “by disclosing confidential and privileged information with A. Richard Golub (“Golub”), a known associate oflmmortalana’s principals … for the sole purpose of coercing one oflmmortalana’s owners, Kelly Day, to provide payment to Exeter.” More specifically, it alleges in April 2014, at Wong’s “instigat[ing], “Wong and Golub contacted Day by telephone” at which point “Golub began screaming and reprimanding Day for not paying Exeter and Wong” and “shouted at Day in an aggressive tone that Day’s ‘partners’ were ‘screwing her’ and that the company they had formed was a sham.” It alleges that “[t]he information Golub referred to in the telephone call with Day was information Wong and Exeter obtained while representing Counterclaim Plaintiffs” which Wong and Exeter disclosed to Golub “in order to coerce payment for monies they believe are owed to them.”

“Exeter and Wong seek to dismiss the second counterclaim under CPLR 321 l(a)(l) on the grounds that the engagement letter signed by the Day and Eisner in 2012 explicitly authorizes Exeter to confer with Mr. Golub. Here, the 2012 engagement, which is signed by Eisner and Day, letter provides, “Additionally, I will be consulting with Aaron Richard Golub, Esq., from the law office of Aaron Richard Golub, Esquire, P.C., whom You [Day and Eisner] already know.” While the 2012 engagement letter may permit Wong to consult with Mr. Golub on certain matters, it does not flatly contradict Eisner and Day’s allegations that Mr. Golub may have disclosed confidential communications that Day and Eisner did not – authorize. Furthermore, the alleged coercive nature of the communication may rise to the level of a breach of a fiduciary duty. Alternatively, Exeter and Wong seek to dismiss the second counterclaim under CPLR 321 l(a)(7) on the grounds that New York Rules of Professional Conduct (“NYRPC”) l.6(b)(4) and 1.6(b)(5)(ii) authorized Exeter and Wong to reveal client confidences in consulting with other lawyers. NYRPC l .6(b) provides, in relevant part, that a lawyer “may reveal or use confidential information to the extent that the lawyer reasonably believes necessary: (4) to secure legal advice about compliance with these Rules or other law by the lawyer, another lawyer associated with the lawyer’s firm or the law firm; ***[or] (5)(i)(ii) to establish or collect a fee . .. “(emphasis added). NYRPC 1.6, Comment 14, states “[p ]aragraph (b) permits disclosure only to the extent the lawyer reasonably believes the disclosure is necessary to accomplish one of the purposes specified in paragraphs (b )( 1) through (b )( 6).” Comment 14 to NYRPC 1. 6 further states that “[b ]efore making a disclosure, the lawyer should, where practicable, first seek to persuade the client to take suitable action to obviate the need for disclosure.” Here, while Exeter and Wong may have a defense based on NYRPC 1.6, it does not provide a basis to dismiss the Complaint based on a failure to state a claim at this juncture. Lastly, Exeter and Wong argues that the second counterclaim fails to state a claim because “[t]here is no private right of action for a violation of the Code of Professional Responsibility” under controlling First Department law.” “The violation of a disciplinary rule does not, without more, generate a cause of action.” (Schwartz v. Olshan Grundman Frame & Rosenzweig, 302 A.D.2d 193, 199 [1st Dep’t 2003]). However, a claim for breach of fiduciary duty can be stated where the defendant lawyer is alleged to have used confidential information to disadvantage a former client even though it was also a violation of disciplinary rules. (Sharbat v Law Offs. of Michael B. Wolk, P. C., 2011 WL 197825 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. Jan. 12, 2011).

Accordingly, Movants have failed to establish a basis for dismissal of the second counterclaim for breach of fiduciary, and the claim stands.”

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Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened…

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened his private law office and took his first legal malpractice case.

Since 1989, Bluestone has become a leader in the New York Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice bar, handling a wide array of plaintiff’s legal malpractice cases arising from catastrophic personal injury, contracts, patents, commercial litigation, securities, matrimonial and custody issues, medical malpractice, insurance, product liability, real estate, landlord-tenant, foreclosures and has defended attorneys in a limited number of legal malpractice cases.

Bluestone also took an academic role in field, publishing the New York Attorney Malpractice Report from 2002-2004.  He started the “New York Attorney Malpractice Blog” in 2004, where he has published more than 4500 entries.

Mr. Bluestone has written 38 scholarly peer-reviewed articles concerning legal malpractice, many in the Outside Counsel column of the New York Law Journal. He has appeared as an Expert witness in multiple legal malpractice litigations.

Mr. Bluestone is an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University College of Law, teaching Legal Malpractice.  Mr. Bluestone has argued legal malpractice cases in the Second Circuit, in the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the four New York Appellate Divisions, in all four of  the U.S. District Courts of New York and in Supreme Courts all over the state.  He has also been admitted pro haec vice in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida and was formally admitted to the US District Court of Connecticut and to its Bankruptcy Court all for legal malpractice matters. He has been retained by U.S. Trustees in legal malpractice cases from Bankruptcy Courts, and has represented municipalities, insurance companies, hedge funds, communications companies and international manufacturing firms. Mr. Bluestone regularly lectures in CLEs on legal malpractice.

Based upon his professional experience Bluestone was named a Diplomate and was Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys in 2008 in Legal Malpractice. He remains Board Certified.  He was admitted to The Best Lawyers in America from 2012-2019.  He has been featured in Who’s Who in Law since 1993.

In the last years, Mr. Bluestone has been featured for two particularly noteworthy legal malpractice cases.  The first was a settlement of an $11.9 million dollar default legal malpractice case of Yeo v. Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman which was reported in the NYLJ on August 15, 2016. Most recently, Mr. Bluestone obtained a rare plaintiff’s verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of the City of White Plains v. Joseph Maria, reported in the NYLJ on February 14, 2017. It was the sole legal malpractice jury verdict in the State of New York for 2017.

Bluestone has been at the forefront of the development of legal malpractice principles and has contributed case law decisions, writing and lecturing which have been recognized by his peers.  He is regularly mentioned in academic writing, and his past cases are often cited in current legal malpractice decisions. He is recognized for his ample writings on Judiciary Law § 487, a 850 year old statute deriving from England which relates to attorney deceit.