Plaintiff unlocks the front door to his apartment building and it knocked unconscious as soon as he enters the lobby.  Three men run out with bats in hand.  Is there a case against the landlord?  In Angeles v Aronsky  2013 NY Slip Op 05955  Decided on September 24, 2013  Appellate Division, First Department we see not only that there easily could be a case for premises security liability, but it could be legal malpractice to settle too fast, and potentially, for too little money.
 

"Shortly after the attack, plaintiff retained defendant to represent him in a potential personal injury case. According to defendant, an investigator from his office initially interviewed plaintiff at the hospital. Defendant asserts that he later spoke with plaintiff over the phone to review the information plaintiff had given the investigator. Plaintiff told defendant that the front door was locking properly on the day he received his injuries and mentioned no other entrances. Defendant accepted plaintiff’s statements concerning the security of the building, and did not send an investigator to inspect the premises or visit the premises himself. Also, he did not interview the superintendent. [*2]

Although a settlement agreement was reached with the owner of the building prior to the commencement of any personal injury action, plaintiff commenced a legal malpractice action against defendant, alleging, inter alia, that he negligently investigated plaintiff’s premises liability claim. Defendant moved for summary judgment dismissing plaintiff’s complaint and the motion court denied the motion.

For a claim for legal malpractice to be successful, "a plaintiff must establish both that the defendant attorney failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal profession which results in actual damages to a plaintiff and that the plaintiff would have succeeded on the merits of the underlying action but for’ the attorney’s negligence" (AmBase Corp. v Davis Polk & Wardwell, 8 NY3d 428, 434 [2007] [internal citation omitted]). A client is not barred from a legal malpractice action where there is a signed "settlement of the underlying action, if it is alleged that the settlement of the action was effectively compelled by the mistakes of counsel" (Garnett v Fox, Horan & Camerini, LLP, 82 AD3d 435 [1st Dept 2011] [internal quotation marks omitted], quoting Bernstein v Oppenheim & Co., 160 AD2d 428, 430 [1st Dept 1990]).
 

Plaintiff, a waiter with a sixth grade education, retained defendant to represent him in a premises liability claim, relying on defendant’s expertise as a personal injury attorney to evaluate his claim and provide advice on the case. Plaintiff asserts that defendant only contacted him once after being retained, and only to ask him to go into defendant’s office to sign paperwork for the case. Plaintiff, an unsophisticated client with no legal experience, states that defendant did not explain to him the strengths and weaknesses of his claim and did not do a proper investigation. Defendant does not dispute that he never went to the building or spoke to the superintendent, but argues that he fulfilled his obligation by conveying the settlement offer to plaintiff.

In this specific case, given plaintiff’s lack of sophistication and his limited education, defendant’s statement that he never conducted any investigation, except for speaking to plaintiff for a very limited time, raises a question of fact as to whether defendant adequately informed himself about the facts of the case before he conveyed the settlement offer. Furthermore, defendant says he told plaintiff, when he conveyed the settlement offer, that it was a "difficult liability case." It is difficult to understand, on the record before us, how he made that assessment without going to the building, or speaking to the superintendent. Because the evidence on a defendant’s summary judgment motion must be viewed in the light most favorable to plaintiff (Branham v Loews Orpheum Cinemas, Inc., 8 NY3d 931 [2007]), we find there are questions of fact as to whether the attorney failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill appropriate under the circumstances.

The motion court properly found that plaintiff raised a question of fact as to whether the underlying action would have succeeded. To prevail on a premises liability claim, a plaintiff does not have "to exclude every other possible" explanation as to how the assailants entered the building, but only present "evidence [that] renders it more likely or more reasonable than not that the assailant was an intruder who gained access to the premises through a negligently maintained entrance" (Burgos v Aqueduct Realty Corp., 92 NY2d 544, 550-551 [1998]). In Bello v Campus Realty, LLC (99 AD3d 638, 639 [1st Dept 2012]), this Court found an issue of fact as to how the assailants entered the building where the plaintiff did not recognize her attackers as fellow tenants and the men were dressed as police officers. Similarly, in Chunn v New York City Hous. Auth. (83 AD3d 416, 417 [1st Dept 2011]), a factual issue was presented as to whether it was [*3]more likely than not that plaintiff’s assailants were intruders where the men made no attempt to conceal their faces."