Legal Malpractice

So, Who is At Fault Here? Is it Legal Malpractice?

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

Jail over Christmas...is there anything worse?  Well, yes of course there is, yet being jailed for the holidays is pretty bad. That's what happened to plaintiff here.  Was it her fault or her attorneys?

in Minkow v Sanders ;2011 NY Slip Op 02120 ; Decided on March 24, 2011 ; Appellate Division, First Department  we see the fault placed on plaintiff's shoulders and the attorney obtaining dismisal of the legal malpractice case. 
 

"The documentary evidence conclusively disposed of plaintiff's legal malpractice claims (see Goshen v Mutual Life Ins. Co. of N.Y., 98 NY2d 314, 326 [2002]). The hearing court found that plaintiff's disobedience of the so-ordered stipulation directing her to transfer certain custodial accounts to her husband's attorney to be placed in escrow or immediately liquidate the accounts and transfer the proceeds was willful. In light of such willful conduct, the motion court properly found that plaintiff — not her attorneys — was the proximate cause of her contempt adjudication and the resulting incarceration (see Delfyette v Fisher, 40 AD2d 674 [1972]). We note that letters from the husband's attorneys, which were provided to plaintiff by defendants, unambiguously indicated that plaintiff's compliance with the so-ordered stipulation was a condition precedent to further settlement discussions. Defendants' alleged failure to correct the purge amount set forth in the contempt order to conform to the stipulation was also not a proximate cause of plaintiff's incarceration from December 23 through December 26, since the stipulation identified the amounts in the subject accounts as "approximate current balance[s]," thus recognizing that their values were subject to market fluctuation."

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on March 29, 2011 (boomark / email).