Legal Malpractice

Did He or Didn't He is a Legal Malpractice Question

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

TJS of N.Y. Inc. v. Koppelman, 2010 NY Slip Op 32329(U), by Justice Denise F. Molia of Supreme Court, Suffolk County is something of a cliff-hanger.  When we read it, there was no foreshadowing, no pre-tensioning nor any insight into how the decision would come out.  it's a classic didhedoit.

Plaintiff claims a longstanding relationship with attorney defendant.  The two of them and others seem to have been in and out of business in the vending and bar areas.  In this case, plaintiff eventually bought a bar, and assumed what he thought was going to be debts of $ 40,000 or so.  it turned into $1 million.  Question:  was the defendant his attorney or not?

In the end, this summary judgment decision went against defendant, and the motion was denied.  Plaintiff's affidavit seems to be the turning point, especially when it was dotted with several troubling deposition answers by defendant and a few inconvenient facts.

Plaintiff said that he used defendant as an attorney several times over the years, building up a relationship.  Defendant says no, but testified that he may have undertaken an incorporation in which plaintiff was a shareholder.  Plaintiff says that he paid defendant in cash, and defendant says that when he wrote the bar contact that plaintiff may have had some input into the terms.

Plaintiff says that defendant represented him in the transaction, but defendant says that one Navaretta was plaintiff's attorney.  Inconveniently, defendant sent the contract of sale directly to plaintiff, bypassing the "attorney."  An so it goes, with "facts" that cannot be conclusively found.

In the end, motion for summary judgment denied.

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on September 01, 2010 (boomark / email).