Law.Com reports this case Acosta v. PACE Local I-300 Health Fund, 04-CV-3885

"A New Jersey federal judge’s dismissal of legal malpractice and breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims against counsel in an ERISA case shows that trustees sued for misfeasance can’t easily pass the buck to their lawyers.

Though he dismissed the claims on procedural grounds, U.S. District Judge Joel Pisano held that even if attorney Gary Carlson knew of prohibited transactions and failed to disclose them, the fund’s trustees "cannot show that Carlson’s conduct — rather than that of the actual wrongdoers — was the proximate cause of any losses they allegedly suffered."

Carlson was counsel to the PACE Local I-300 Union and its health fund. The ERISA suit, Acosta v. PACE Local I-300 Health Fund, 04-CV-3885, alleged that the trustees and administrators of the fund drained it of money, paying themselves excessive salaries, leasing fancy cars, using funds for the benefit of the union and other improper purposes. The plaintiffs are hundreds of workers whose health claims went unpaid, the companies they worked for, and health care providers seeking to recover unpaid medical bills.

The trustees, Matthew DiMinno and Allan Funk, turned around and sued Carlson, alleging he was aware of the improper expenditures and had a duty to inform the trustees but failed to do so, resulting in a loss of more than $1 million.

The third-party complaint alleged the failure to act was a breach of fiduciary duty and of legal ethics rules and constituted malpractice by Carlson, his current firm, Kroll Heineman Giblin, and the firm he left in 2004, Lynch Martin.

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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.