Williams v Silverstone 2023 NY Slip Op 01917 Decided on April 12, 2023
Appellate Division, Second Department is a common or varietal version of motion to dismiss decisions in legal malpractice settings. Plaintiff alleges that she had to settle a case with her former employer, which could have come out better, had the attorneys not been negligent. The Court finds that this fails to state a cause of action, or worse, that Plaintiff actually did not have a good cause of action. When the decision fails to outline what Plaintiff alleges the defendant did wrong, it fails to inform the bar and bench of what are the minimum allegations necessary to have a good cause of action.

“The plaintiff, a former Superintendent of Schools of the Poughkeepsie City School District (hereinafter the school district), retained the defendant attorney to represent her in connection with disputes (hereinafter the underlying matters) concerning, inter alia, the enforceability of her employment agreement with the Board of Education of the school district (hereinafter the Board). Members of the Board, among other things, sought to declare the plaintiff’s employment agreement null and void. Subsequently, the plaintiff settled the underlying matters with the Board by entering into a separation and settlement agreement.

Thereafter, the plaintiff commenced this action against the defendant to recover damages for legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty. The defendant moved pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(1), (5), and (7) to dismiss the complaint. In an order dated October 1, 2020, the Supreme Court granted the motion on the ground that the complaint failed to state a cause of action. The plaintiff appeals.”

“Here, even if the defendant had been negligent in his representation of the plaintiff in connection with the underlying matters, viewing the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff (see Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d at 87-88), it failed to plead specific factual allegations demonstrating that, but for the defendant’s alleged negligence, there would have been a more favorable outcome in the underlying matters or that the plaintiff would not have incurred any damages (see York v Frank, 209 AD3d 804, 807; Katsoris v Bodnar & Milone, LLP, 186 AD3d at 1506; Benishai v Epstein, 116 AD3d 726, 728). The plaintiff’s general contentions that but for the defendant’s negligence, she “would have litigated her claims against the Board, or in the alternative, procured a settlement agreement with better terms of compensation and otherwise far more beneficial” are speculative and, as such, cannot serve as a basis for a legal malpractice claim (see Jean-Paul v Rosenblatt, 208 AD3d at 653; Katsoris v Bodnar & Milone, LLP, 186 AD3d at 1506). “The fact that the plaintiff subsequently was unhappy with the settlement [she] obtained . . . does not rise to the level of legal malpractice” (Katsoris v Bodnar & Milone, LLP, 186 AD3d at 1506 [internal quotation marks omitted]; see Schiller v Bender, Burrows & Rosenthal, LLP, 116 AD3d 756, 758; Holschauer v Fisher, 5 AD3d 553, 554).”