Red Zone LLC v Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP    2014 NY Slip Op 04570     Decided on June 19, 2014   Appellate Division, First Department is the latest wow legal malpractice case, since it ended in a $ 17.2 million award, and is sure to be the largest Legal Malpractice award of the year.  Yesterday we discussed the interesting continuous representation issues.  Today, the expert issue.  When is an expert needed?  Would you have used one in a case this large?  None was needed here!

"Plaintiff commenced this action for legal malpractice against defendant law firm based on the alleged negligent drafting of an agreement (Side Agreement) that was intended to memorialize an oral agreement between plaintiff and nonparty UBS Securities LLC (UBS) to cap at $2 million the amount of fees UBS was to receive for acting as plaintiff’s exclusive financial advisor in its effort to acquire control of nonparty Six Flags, Inc., unless plaintiff acquired more than 51% of the voting shares of Six Flags. Prior to the instant lawsuit, UBS successfully sued plaintiff for $10 million in fees in connection with the Six Flags transaction. In the course of that lawsuit, we rejected plaintiff’s argument that the Side Agreement, read in tandem with the main agreement (Engagement Agreement), capped UBS’s fee at $2 million (UBS Sec. LLC v Red Zone LLC, 77 AD3d 575 [1st Dept 2010], lv denied 17 NY3d 706 [2011]) (UBS Decision).

Plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment on its legal malpractice claim was also properly granted. Notably, defendant does not dispute that the Side Agreement was intended to cap UBS’s fees at $2 million. Given our prior finding in the UBS litigation that the Side Agreement failed to do just that (UBS Sec. LLC, 77 AD3d 575), summary judgment is warranted. Accordingly, no expert opinion evidence was necessary before granting the motion (see Northrop v Thorsen, 46 AD3d 780, 782 [2d Dept 2007]). There are no triable issues as to whether defendant, as opposed to plaintiff or its trial counsel in the UBS litigation, caused plaintiff’s injuries. But for defendant’s drafting of the Side Agreement, UBS would not have prevailed in its lawsuit seeking $10 million (see Rudolf v Shayne, Dachs, Stanisci, Corker & Sauer, 8 NY3d 438, 442 [2007])."