LEGAL MALPRACTICE – Damages – Proximate Cause – Anticipated Events – Speculative – An attorney’s failure to file an injunction against plaintiff’s competitor is too speculative to be deemed the proximate cause of plaintiff’s damages in a legal malpractice action. Moreover, speculation on future events, including anticipated court rulings, does not establish that but for the attorney’s malpractice, plaintiff would not have sustained any injury. Speculation on future events does not establish that but for the attorney’s malpractice, plaintiff would not have sustained any injury.
Brooks v. Lewin; First Dept.

Only in Palm Beach. Plaintiff was making big bucks. Plaintiff was living in a country club. Plaintiff was not paying his US taxes, and the government eventually came after him. His belief? The company was and should have been paying his taxes. He’s lost it all, and is now suing the company and the attorneys. Fact or fiction?

http://www.thestate.comThe State.com reports that in South Carolina, the law firm of Nexsen Pruet has lost the “largest legal malpractice” award after trial in South Carolina history. The case arose after plaintiff paid defendant $ 15,000 to advise him how to leave his employer and start a new pecan nutcracker company with a patented machine. Plaintiff now has a verdict of $ 5.5 million. Details.

Shannon Duffy writes in the NYJL that the largest insurance bad faith verdict in Pennsylvania arose from a botched defense of two doctors in a medical malpractice case. The insurer intentionally assigned one attorney to both doctors, even when their “best defense’ was to blaim the other.

Doctors could have settled within their $2.5 million policy, but did not. Now they share a $ 7.9 million verdict which includes $ 6.25 million in punitive damages, upheld on appeal. Details.