Taxation & Estate Planning

Estate Planning Malpractice ? NY Court Has A Warning For Ohio Planners

By michael

I’ve written on the issue of estate planners committing malpractice against their clients here and here on this blog before.   Its an issue of interest for Ohio attorneys  because Ohio still clings to the antiquated rule of privity to decide who has standing to sue the attorney who allegedly gave the bad advice.  Basically, requiring privity means you must have been the one in a contractual relationship with the attorney – the client.  In the estate planning context, however, this is a little complicated because if the bad advice was given during the client’s lifetime its more than probable than not that damages for the bad advice won’t accrue until the client dies.  Therefore, you’ve got no one left to sue the attorney for malpractice because the client is dead!  Kinda dumb, I know, I complain about it all the time.

However, tn The Estate of Saul Schneider v. Victor M. Finmann, N.Y.3d 2010 N.Y, Slip Op 05281 (pdf of opinion) decided this past June 17th, the New York court held:

the legal representative of a decedent stands in  that person’s shoes for the purpose of being able to maintain a malpractice action against the decedent’s estate planner where improper advice or negligent estate planning has resulted in a loss.

Imputing this legal fiction on the fiduciary means a malpractice action can now be maintained.  So there you go Ohio courts!  Lets get this done.  If you don’t want to update the law (to the much preferable California rule that follows the harm and allows the party that suffered as a result of the bad advice to bring a malpractice case) then lets give this a try…  Its a little awkward but its about time in Ohio stepped up and allowed aggrieved clients to sue the attorney who rendered the poor advice.

Thanks to Philip Bernstein of the New York Probate Litigation Blog for pointing this out to me.

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Full post as published by The Ohio Trust & Estate Blog on August 14, 2010 (boomark / email).