Legal Malpractice

Cruising for a Bruising in Cruise Line Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

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. "

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on March 19, 2008 (boomark / email).