Legal Malpractice

Case is Dismissed, Time Passes By and Plaintiff Loses a Legal Malpractice Case

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Plaintiff suffers a personal injury trip and fall, and hires attorney 1 to sue the landlord.  The landlord is sued.  Case continues and eventually an inquest is ordered.  At the inquest, the Court tells the attorneys that they need medical records.  This seems to be an elementary point, since it's well known that one needs medical records at an inquest.  Case is marked off.  Time passes by and the client becomes disenchanted.  She files a Disciplinary complaint.  Law firm makes motion to restore this pre-note case.  Motion is denied.  That's the last client ever hears of law firm.  Disciplinary complaint dismissed.

Client sued defendants in 2010 and the motions to dismiss for statute of limitations comes on before Justice Gische in Supreme Court, New York County.  In Reynolds v Ross, Suchoff, Hankin, Maidenbaum, Handwerker & Mazel, P.C  Justice Gische has to choose between two opposing narratives. Plaintiff's is that as the law firms formed and ended, her case was lost in the cracks, and no one ever told her the case was actually dismissed.  Law firms view is that she knew and thus the S/L was running against her.

Court dismissed the case, finding that plaintiff knew as of 2005 that her case was dismissed and that the S/L thus started to run.  Legal malpractice action, dismissed.

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on September 29, 2010 (boomark / email).