Pruss v AmTrust N. Am. Inc. 2022 NY Slip Op 02884 [204 AD3d 620] April 28, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department seems to be the story of a settlement offer made in good faith, where the offeror only found out later that its principal lacked the authority to make the offer in the first place.
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 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.
Already Decided Once and Patently Devoid of Merit
In this odd case, Feng Li v Shih 2022 NY Slip Op 04293 Decided on July 6, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department Plaintiff is an attorney who was disbarred in New Jersey and suspended in New York. He turns around and sues another attorney claiming that the proceedings in New Jersey were malicious, an abuse…
Documents Kill the Legal Malpractice Case
Frydco Capital Group, LLC v Carlton Fields, P.A. 2022 NY Slip Op 02619 [204 AD3d 532] April 21, 2022 Appellate Division, First Department is a picture of two wholly different stories. Plaintiff’s story survived a motion to dismiss, only to be vanquished by Defendants’ story on appeal.
“The legal malpractice claims should have been dismissed…
Too Late For Some Claims, Not Too Late For Others
Previously, we looked at the Judiciary Law § 487 claims. Legal Malpractice Claims were also brought in Joseph v Fensterman 2022 NY Slip Op 02398 [204 AD3d 766] April 13, 2022
Appellate Division, Second Department.
“Contrary to the plaintiffs’ contention, the Supreme Court properly granted that branch of the defendants’ motion which was to dismiss…
Nursing Home Sales and Judiciary Law 487
In an unusually detailed decision, the Appellate Division, Second Department reversed Supreme Court’s dismissal in Joseph v Fensterman 2022 NY Slip Op 02398 [204 AD3d 766] April 13, 2022.
“The Supreme Court should have denied that branch of the defendants’ motion which was to dismiss the first cause of action in the amended complaint, which…
Errors, Yes, but Inconsequential
Kutzin v Katz 2022 NY Slip Op 04595 Decided on July 14, 2022 Appellate Division, Third Department is an example of the minute detailed examination which is made to the record in a legal malpractice case. Plaintiff loses.
“In May 2016, plaintiff retained defendant to represent him in drafting a marital settlement agreement. Among other…
No Harm, No Foul in Legal Malpractice Setting
Ward v Klein 2022 NY Slip Op 02153 [203 AD3d 1216] March 30, 2022 Appellate Division, Second Department represents the “no harm-no foul” analysis frequently applied to legal malpractice claims. Attorneys are allowed to withdraw from representation and often do. This fact pattern consistently appears in medical malpractice cases at about the time that the…
Relying on the Consent to Change Attorney Date
Continuous representation tolls the running of the statute of limitations, which commences when the attorney mistake is made. Continuous representation exists because it is inequitable to require a client to sue its attorney while the case is still ongoing. That said, there are many requirements as can be seen in Walsh v Wallace Law Off. …
A Very Complicated Real Estate Deal Continues Against All
Cassaforte Ltd. v Pourtavoosi 2022 NY Slip Op 32063(U) June 30, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 451426/2020 Judge: Margaret A. Chan is a complicated real estate breach of fiduciary duty and breach of contract case which cannot adequately be recited in a blog article. However, this is a short version:…
Intervening Causes and Death
Stevens v Wheeler 2022 NY Slip Op 31699(U) April 27, 2022 Supreme Court, New York County Docket Number: Index No. 151129/2021 Judge: David B. Cohen is a complex statutory legal malpractice case which turns on how a Rhode Island Estate law treats a spouse in her fight with a son over the deceased father’s estate. …