Legal Malpractice

Amendment Just Not Allowed in this Legal Malpractice Case

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Plaintiff sues law firm for legal malpractice.  Case rests on representation in a commercial real estate lease.  There was a four year period in which the landlord was building the premises, and the question of in what year  a tax escalation clause starts led to this legal malpractice case. 

Global Bus. Inst. v Rivkin Radler, LLP 01/13/2010 Other Courts 2010 NYSlipOp 30062(U)  follows a familiar path in which the court makes factual determinations, as a matter of law even when the parties have not moved for summary judgment.

Several years ago, the matter was transferred to Civil Court pursuant to CPLR 321(d).  Now plaintiff seeks to increase the ad damnum clause and restore to Supreme Court.  They fail, because the court scrutinizes the evidence and determines [via summary judgment or something like it] that it was the client and not the law firm who negotiated the tax escalation clause themselves.

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on January 25, 2010 (boomark / email).