This report of a Texas Case that garnered a $ 71 Million dollar verdict, only to see it overturned on appeal.  Now, the Texas court of last resort has denied review. 

"The Texas Supreme Court handed Houston-based Baker Botts a big victory. On Aug. 31, the Supreme Court denied a petition for review in Kathleen C. Cailloux v. Baker Botts, et al., a ruling that upheld a take-nothing judgment in favor of Baker Botts and Wells Fargo Bank Texas in a big-bucks estate-planning suit.

In 2005, 198th District Judge Karl Emil Prohl of Kerr County ordered Baker Botts and Wells Fargo to pay $71 million in damages to former estate-planning client Kathleen C. Cailloux, a wealthy widow in Kerrville. A jury found Baker Botts breached its fiduciary duty for failing to disclose all important information when doing estate-planning work for Cailloux after the death of her husband, Floyd, in January 1997.

The jury also found Wells Fargo breached its fiduciary duty to Cailloux.

Cailloux alleged in the Sixth Amended Petition that the defendants conspired to convince her, right after her husband’s death, to disclaim her rights to her husband’s estate and transfer more than $60 million to the Floyd A. Cailloux and Kathleen C. Cailloux Foundation — ostensibly to save more than $30 million in taxes — without informing her of other estate-planning options.

In February, a three-justice panel of the 4th Court of Appeals in San Antonio reversed the judgment and rendered a take-nothing judgment in favor of the firm and the bank. In the opinion, Justice Catherine Stone wrote that nothing in the record proved that Baker Botts or Wells Fargo breached a fiduciary duty that caused Cailloux to disclaim her right to the estate of her late husband. "

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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.