JL§ 487, possibly the oldest part of the anglo-american common law, but for the Magna Carta, regularly comes up in legal malpractice settings.  Here, in Sammy v Haupel 2019 NY Slip Op 02372
Decided on March 27, 2019 the Appellate Division, Second Department affirms the dismissal of a claim against Wilson Elser and its top attorneys.

“The events underlying this action relate to the plaintiff’s purchase of real property in 2007. According to the plaintiff, Expedient Title, Inc. (hereinafter Expedient), as the authorized agent of First American Title Insurance Company (hereinafter First American), performed title closing services, including issuing title insurance to the plaintiff, for the plaintiff’s purchase of the property. Ultimately, the plaintiff made a claim on that title insurance policy, the claim was denied, and the plaintiff commenced an action against Expedient and First American (hereinafter the claim denial action).

The plaintiff subsequently commenced this action against Thomas W. Hyland, Tina [*2]Zerilli, and Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker, LLP (hereinafter collectively the Wilson Elser defendants), who had represented Expedient in the claim denial action, and against Frank Haupel, Michael Schwarz, and DelBello Donnellan Weingarten Wise & Wiederkehr, LLP (hereinafter collectively the DelBello defendants), who had represented First American in the claim denial action. The plaintiff alleged that through their representation of First American and Expedient, the defendants had (1) violated Judiciary Law § 487, (2) committed fraud, (3) filed a fraudulent instrument, (4) committed tortious interference with a contract, and (5) offered a false instrument for filing in the first degree.”

“An attorney is liable under Judiciary Law § 487(1) if he or she “[i]s guilty of any deceit or collusion, or consents to any deceit or collusion, with intent to deceive the court or any party.” “A cause of action alleging a violation of Judiciary Law § 487 must be pleaded with specificity” (Betz v Blatt, 160 AD3d 696, 698). “Judiciary Law § 487 focuses on the attorney’s intent to deceive, not the deceit’s success” (id. at 699 [internal quotation marks omitted]).

Here, the plaintiff did not state a cause of action alleging violations of Judiciary Law § 487. The plaintiff failed to set forth “with specificity,” either in her complaint or in her papers opposing the motions, how the defendants knew or should have known that she did not sign the release upon which they relied in asserting affirmative defenses on behalf of their clients in the claim denial action (id. at 698). Even if the plaintiff had sufficiently pleaded this allegation, she “failed to allege sufficient facts to establish that the[ ] defendants intended to deceive the court” or the plaintiff (Klein v Rieff, 135 AD3d 910, 912; see Ticketmaster Corp. v Lidsky, 245 AD2d 142, 143; Thomas v Chamberlain, D’Amanda, Oppenheimer & Greenfield, 115 AD2d 999, 999-1000). The plaintiff’s conclusory allegation that the defendants intended to deceive the court and the plaintiff in relying on the affirmative defense of release in the claim denial action was not sufficient to state a cause of action alleging a violation of Judiciary Law § 487 (see Betz v Blatt, 160 AD3d at 698; Kupersmith v Winged Foot Golf Club, Inc., 38 AD3d 847, 848). Accordingly, we agree with the Supreme Court’s determination granting those branches of the defendants’ motions which were pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(7) to dismiss the cause of action alleging violations of Judiciary Law § 487 insofar as asserted against each of them.”