Moncho v Miller  2021 NY Slip Op 06960 Decided on December 14, 2021 Appellate Division, First Department illustrates a number of bedrock principles in legal malpractice.  Who has standing to sue an attorney when a bankruptcy is involved is the first, which we will discuss today.

Plaintiffs filed a bankruptcy claim using attorneys who worked both pre-and post-petition.  The complaint was dismissed in its entirety.  The A.D. reversed in part.

“The motion court erred in dismissing Realty’s claims for lack of capacity to bring those claims. The Bankruptcy Code provides that “[t]he commencement of a case . . . creates an estate, which] is comprised of . . . (1) . . . all legal or equitable interests of the debtor in property as of the commencement of the case” (11 USC § 541[a]). Neither plaintiffs nor defendants dispute that any claims which arose prior to the filing of the bankruptcy petition belong to the estate. Rather, the parties dispute whether Realty, as debtor, or the estate owns the claims asserted against Pasternak and DelBello, which arose after the filing of the bankruptcy petition.

This Court has previously held that a claim which arose after the filing of a bankruptcy petition was the property of the estate (see Barranco v Cabrini Med. Ctr., 50 AD3d 281, 282 [1st Dept 2008]; Williams v Stein, 6 AD3d 197, 198 [1st Dept 2004]). When those cases were decided, there was a split among the federal courts which had addressed the issue. However, there is now uniformity among the Federal Courts of Appeals, which have held that pursuant to section 541(a) of the Bankruptcy Code, a claim which arose after the filing of a bankruptcy petition belongs to the debtor and not the estate (Davidkin v Rizzuto, 55 Misc 3d 528 [Sup Ct, Kings County 2017]; see Cadle Co. v Schlichtmann, 267 F3d 14 [1st Cir 2001], cert denied 535 US 1018 [2002]; In re Jackson, 593 F3d 171 [2d Cir 2010]; In re Majestic Star Casino, LLC, 716 F3d 736 [3d Cir 2013]; In re Avis, 178 F3d 718 [4th Cir 1999]; In re Burgess, 438 F3d 493 [*2][5th Cir 2006]; In re Shelbyville Rd. Shoppes, LLC, 775 F3d 789 [6th Cir 2015]; In re Stinnett, 465 F3d 309 [7th Cir 2006]; In re Vote, 276 F3d 1024 [8th Cir 2002]; In re Mwangi, 764 F3d 1168 [9th Cir 2014]; Patrick A. Casey, P.A. v Hochman, 963 F2d 1347 [10th Cir 1992]; In re Witko, 374 F3d 1040 [11th Cir 2004]). As this Court is bound by federal law when making a determination on this issue (see Lane v Marshall, 89 AD2d 579, 580 [2d Dept 1982], appeal dismissed 57 NY2d 955 [1982]), we follow the aforementioned federal holdings and find that because the claims at issue arose after the filing of the bankruptcy petition, the claims belong to Realty. Thus, Realty has the capacity to sue Pasternak and DelBello.”

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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.