NY Lawyer reports that a legal malpractice case against Drinker Biddel, dismissed on summary judgment, has been reversed and remanded for trial.  In a double whammy, DB’s cause of action for legal fees has also been reversed.

"A New Jersey appeals court on Tuesday reinstated a claim that 630-lawyer Drinker Biddle committed malpractice that forced a litigation client to make a bad settlement and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The judges also set aside a trial judge’s ruling last year that the client, Verdure Asset Corp. of New York, owed the firm $240,000 for work its Princeton office did on the troubled case in 2003.

Instead of dismissing the malpractice suit on summary judgment, a Mercer County, N.J., judge should have let a jury decide, the appeals panel ruled in an unpublished opinion, Verdure Asset Corp. v. Wheeler, A-3084-06.

Lead defendant Jonathan Wheeler, a Cherry Hill solo who also represented Verdure, won dismissal in 2006 and is no longer part of the case.

Verdure turned to Wheeler in 2000 to sue two environmental companies whose work removing oil tanks allegedly devalued a 47-acre property Verdure owned in Hamilton Township. "

The $15 Million case by Mercantile Capital Partners Fund against Morrison Cohen has survived a motion to dismiss.  The decision  by Justice Ling-Cohan determines that the complaint is sufficient for now.  "The gravamen of this legal malpractice claim is that defendant’s alleged failure to perfect plaintiff’s security interest and subsequent failure of the credit bid deal caused plaintiff damages.  Plaintiffs allege that if the credit bid deal proceeded as intended, Dry Ice would have avoided liquidation and transformed sufficiently to generate enough profits to pay off its debts and generate income for plaintiff."

In New York for the most part, venue is found in the county where plaintiff or defendant resides or has its principal place of business.  Here is an interesting case from Missouri, in which plaintiff successfully started and kept the case in the county [or district] where the wrong took place.

"State ex rel. Semsa Selimanovic, et al., Relators v. The Honorable Robert Dierker, Jr., Respondent.

Case Number: SC88697

Handdown Date: 03/18/2008

Appeal From: Original Proceeding in Prohibition

Counsel for Appellant: Ted F. Frapolli

Counsel for Respondent: R.C. Wuestling and M. Adina Johnson

Opinion Summary:
This summary is not part of the opinion of the Court. It has been prepared by the Communications Counsel for the convenience of the reader. It has been neither reviewed nor approved by the Supreme Court and should not be quoted or cited. The opinion of the Court, which may be quoted, follows the summary.

Overview: This is a case of first impression involving the determination of which venue is proper for a legal malpractice claim alleging that an attorney failed to file a lawsuit before the statute of limitations expired: where the attorney’s office is located or where the underlying lawsuit would have been filed. In a unanimous decision written by Judge Richard B. Teitelman, the Supreme Court holds that, under the facts of this case and the plain language of the venue statutes, the plaintiffs were "first injured" in the venues in which the underlying action could have been filed, and once they made their choice of proper venues, the circuit court has no discretion to disturb that choice.

Legal malpractice carriers are always looking for a way out.  Coverage exclusions, notice provisions, each week out a very significant number of potential claims.  Notice provisions are found both in the initial [usually yearly] applications, as well as the obligation to inform the carrier as soon as a claim is even a potential.

Here is a case from the 9th Circuit, reported by Circuit Watcher Blog, 06-15622 James River Ins. Co. v. Hebert Schenk, P.C. Before: William C. Canby, Jr., David R. Thompson, and Milan D. Smith, Jr., Circuit Judges.
"In this appeal we decide whether the district court erred in granting summary judgment to a professional liability insurer on a claim seeking a declaration of no coverage, and on counterclaims for breach of contract and bad faith under Arizona law. The insurer argued that it could permissibly refuse to provide for its insured’s defense against a legal malpractice lawsuit because the insured failed to mention the possibility of the lawsuit in the insurance application. The district court agreed and held that Arizona Revised Statutes § 20-1109 permits a denial of coverage because the insured’s omission constitutes legal fraud. The court rejected the counterclaims because the insurer provided for the malpractice defense. We reverse and remand for trial."

NY Lawyer, via Legal Inteligencer reports on this big number legal fee disgorgement case in Philadelphia.

"A Philadelphia judge has ruled that a Montgomery County law firm should pay $5.2 million, including $1 million in punitive damages, for attorney fees the judge said the firm unlawfully accumulated during its collection of delinquent municipal and school district real estate taxes.

Common Pleas Judge Mark I. Bernstein rendered a verdict Tuesday in the Roethlein v. Portnoff Law Associates Inc. class action against Portnoff Law Associates of Wynnewood. Defendant Michelle R. Portnoff, an attorney, is the president and sole shareholder of the firm, Bernstein said.

Bernstein ruled that the plaintiffs triumphed on an unjust enrichment claim and an Act 6 violation claim because the Portnoff law firm ignored appellate court decisions that municipalities could not add attorney fees to owed tax sums in the hopes that the law of Pennsylvania would change and make those attorney fees legal. Act 6 allows for recovery of charges paid in excess.

Bernstein ordered that the Portnoff firm pay a $5,213,670.08 award, including: $2,654,972.98 in unlawfully received attorney fees; penalty damages of $500,000; $1 million in punitive damages; and $510,855 in unlawfully collected administrative fees and $18,493.55 in interest unlawfully collected on the administrative fees, which were doubled to an award of $1,058,697.10 because, under Act 6, "all sums unlawfully collected as administrative fees and interest on the attorney’s fees are doubled"

This story fromDaily Business Review about cruise line legal malpractice is a twist on the usual.  Generally the story is about a lost plaintiff’s case based on jurisdiction, or the lack thereof.  Here the story is considerably more inflammatory,  Plaintiff’s lawyer Jay Wingate has been in the news lately, with tales of chasing cases, payoffs, and the like,  Now, it is reported that:

"Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines is suing attorney Jay Wingate to recover about $1 million in attorney fees, alleging his firm used misrepresentation to settle 23 worker-injury cases with the cruise line.

Lawyers for the Miami-based company pressed their claim Monday for the money in Miami-Dade Circuit Court after effectively forcing Wingate off a portfolio of 77 other admiralty cases.

Royal Caribbean claimed a Wingate paralegal and investigator paid kickbacks to a corrupt claims adjuster with the cruise line in exchange for inside information on acceptable settlement amounts.

Royal Caribbean had moved to disqualify Wingate from the remaining cases, but Wingate abruptly announced he would withdraw from the cases and go into semi-retirement.

“Now they’re saying ‘OK, let’s get our pound of flesh,’ ” Wingate’s lawyer, Miles McGrane III of McGrane Nosich & Ganz, told Miami-Dade Senior Circuit Judge Herb Stettin. "

New York Lawyer reports that Aretha Franklyn, the Queen of Soul is in danger of losing her mansion over a missed tax payment, which was supposed to be handled by her attorney.  Here is the story from the AP:

"Aretha Franklin could lose her home to tax collectors. The singer says an attorney’s mistake caused her $700,000 mansion in Detroit to slip into foreclosure over $445 in 2005 taxes and late fees.

The Detroit Free Press reports Thursday the Queen of Soul owes a total of $19,192 in back taxes on the property through 2007. She says she plans to pay up and reclaim it by a March 31 deadline.

A spokesman for the Wayne County treasurer’s office says the foreclosure judgment for $445 was entered earlier this month.

Reported today in the NYLJ, the case of Sapir v. Resnick, Supreme Court, Nassau County , Decided February 26, 2008 illustrates an important point.  The attorney’s mistakes are but the starting point in any legal malpractice case.  Vitality of the underlying case is all important too.

Here, "Justice Palmieri held that malpractice had occurred "when the defendant attorney failed to place the matter on the trial calendar, and because of this failure, was dismissed.

Then, analysis went on to the underlying case, which was a defective ladder claim.  That claim was a defective ladder lock which led to a collapse.  The legal malpractice case was defeated by a ladder expert who testified, and convinced the jury, that the ladder could not have collapsed as described by plaintiff.  Result?  Defense verdict, even after a good demonstration of legal malpractice deviation.