Legal Malpractice

Plaintiff's Attorney Loses Three Ways after Settlement of Legal Malpractice Case

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

The problem of the uninsured or underinsured defendanat-attorney is illustrated in this West Virginia Case., Horkulic v. Galloway. 

Plaintiff settled th case for the full policy limit of TIG, and in a deal with the defendant attorney, took his putative bad faith claim, and agreed not to seek the attorney's personal assets.  Along with that, it was agreed that plaintiff could seek attorney fees against TIG.  Good deal in a bad situation? 

Now it has unraveled. Jeffrey Mehalic at The West Virginia Litigation Blog  describes the situation.  TIG, naturally does not like the result.  "The Court has issued its decision in Horkulic v. Galloway, 2008 WL 481000 (W.Va. 2008), which involved a dispute between the lawyer for William Galloway, the defendant in a legal malpractice case, and TIG Insurance Company, which insured Galloway and had retained his lawyer, William Wilmoth. Galloway’s lawyer claimed that a settlement had been reached with plaintiff Jeffrey Horkulic, in which Galloway would confess judgment in the amount of $1,500,000, but that Horkulic would accept Galloway’s policy limits of $500,000 in satisfaction of his claim, would not pursue Galloway’s personal assets, and would not record the judgment.

TIG argued that the purported settlement would enable Horkulic to use Galloway’s confession of judgment in a separate bad faith action in order to establish the value of that claim, and appealed the Circuit Court of Hancock County’s order approving the settlement, including Galloway’s confession of judgment. "

What are the odds that plaintiff and plaintiff's attorney will have a dispute?

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).