You may not serve a Summons before Purchasing an Index Number
The title to this article is fairly obvious, but this Brooklyn legal malpractice case illlustrates how a mistake at the begining of a case may unravel everything after it. Attorney served a summons before purchasing it. Now, after trial, settlement and judgment, the case must begin all over.
"In the brief period that Marina Tylo represented Natalia Khlevner in her divorce proceedings, the attorney did little more than serve Ms. Khlevner's husband with a summons for a divorce action.
Unfortunately, a judicial hearing officer eventually discovered, Ms. Tylo served the summons before filing it and purchasing an index number, thereby rendering the service invalid. The JHO threw out Ms. Khlevner's judgment of divorce, and along with it her favorable settlement agreement.
A Kings County Supreme Court justice has now ruled that Ms. Khlevner may pursue a malpractice claim against her former attorney even though Ms. Khlevner's subsequent attorney failed to catch and remedy his predecessor's error.
"In the instant case, it cannot be said that the successor attorney's failure to detect the subtle but nonetheless fatal flaw in service was such as to completely exonerate the attorney who actually was responsible for the service," Justice Herbert Kramer (See Profile) held in Khlevner v. Tylo, 10733/07, throwing out Ms. Tylo's motion to dismiss. "Law and logic dictate that a jury must decide exactly how the responsibility is to be parsed."