Cause of Action

Court can sometimes hold attorney who brings “frivolous” causes of action liable for sanctions

Posted on by

Sometimes, a court can hold an attorney who brings or continues causes of action deemed “frivolous” or without merit liable for costs and/or sanctions. In Boye v. Rubin & Bailin, LLP, 152 AD3d 1 [1 Dept. 2017], the First Department held that the attorney for the client-plaintiff in a legal malpractice action ought to be sanctioned for frivolous conduct, mainly due to the attorney’s pursuit of a meritless claim. In remanding the case to the lower court, the appellate court held that,…

~ ~ ~

After a careful review of the appellate record and the parties’ briefs, we draw the only conclusion such record permits—the bases for the legal malpractice claim have been without merit in law or fact since their inception. More concerning, however, is that despite it having been apparent from the record that successor counsel was the one who withdrew the conversion and breach of contract claims in the federal action and not defendants, and despite being alerted to this fact by the record of this case and Supreme Court on multiple occasions, counsel persists in repeating a materially false claim to this Court.

There can be no good faith basis for the repetition of this materially false claim on appeal, and we find that counsel’s behavior would satisfy any of the criteria necessary to deem conduct frivolous. In fact, the only fair conclusion is that the prosecution of this appeal and knowing pursuit of a materially false and meritless claim was meant to delay or prolong the litigation or to harass respondents.

“Among the factors we are directed to consider is whether the conduct was continued when it became apparent, or should have been apparent, that the conduct was frivolous, or when such was brought to the attention of the parties or to counsel (22 NYCRR 130-1.1 [c]), circumstances that are replete in this record as noted above” (Levy v Carol Mgt. Corp., 260 AD2d 27, 34 [1st Dept 1999]).

We also consider that sanctions serve to deter future frivolous conduct “not only by the particular parties, but also by the Bar at large” (id. at 34). The goals include preventing the waste of judicial resources, and deterring vexatious litigation and dilatory or malicious litigation tactics.

Here, counsel was ethically obligated to withdraw any baseless and false claims, if not upon his own review of the record, certainly by the time Supreme Court advised him of this fact. Instead, counsel continued to repeat a knowingly false claim in what could only be described as a purposeful attempt to mislead this Court, and pursued claims which were completely without merit in law or fact.

The appropriate remedy for maintaining a frivolous appeal is the award of sanctions in the amount of the reasonable expenses and costs including attorneys’ fees incurred in defending the appeal (see Matter of Levine, 82 AD3d 524, 527 [1st Dept 2011]). Thus, we remand the matter to Supreme Court for a determination of the amount of expenses and costs including attorneys’ fees incurred by defendants in defending this appeal, and for entry of an appropriate judgment as against plaintiff’s attorney.

R. A. Klass
Your Court Street Lawyer

Previous post
Next post

Client stated valid cause of action

Posted on by

In action brought against an attorney who represented the plaintiff in a prior legal malpractice action, the Second Department held that the client stated a valid cause of action and the order granting the motion to dismiss the complaint was reversed.

~ ~ ~

4777 Food Services Corp., Appellant,

v

Anthony P. Gallo, P.C., et al., Respondents.

Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, New York

2016-05087, 67736/14

May 24, 2017

In an action to recover damages for legal malpractice, the plaintiff appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Asher, J.), dated March 23, 2016, which granted the defendants’ motion pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) to dismiss the complaint.

Ordered that the order is reversed, on the law, with costs, and the defendant’s motion pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) to dismiss the complaint is denied.

In this action to recover damages for legal malpractice, the complaint alleges that the defendants, Anthony P. Gallo, P.C., and Anthony P. Gallo (hereinafter together Gallo), who represented the plaintiff in a prior legal malpractice action against the plaintiff’s former attorneys, Demartin & Rizzo, P.C., and Joseph N. Rizzo, Jr. (hereinafter together Rizzo), negligently *1055 failed to respond to certain discovery demands by Rizzo, which resulted in the Supreme Court (Gazzillo, J.) precluding the introduction of evidence in the plaintiff’s legal malpractice action against Rizzo (4777 Food Servs. Corp. v Demartin & Rizzo, P.C., 2013 NY Slip Op 33007[U] [Sup Ct, Suffolk County 2013] [hereinafter the Rizzo order]). The complaint further alleges that, as a result of this evidence being precluded, the court which issued the Rizzo order found that the plaintiff had failed to meet its burden of proof as to the element of damages sustained as a result of Rizzo’s malpractice.

In this action, Gallo moved pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (1) and (7) to dismiss the complaint, and relied in part on the Rizzo order. Gallo argued that the Rizzo order held that even if the subject evidence had not been precluded, the evidence would have been too speculative to support a damages award, and as a result, the complaint was subject to dismissal.

In the order appealed from, the Supreme Court (Asher, J.), relying on certain language in the Rizzo order, determined that Justice Gazzillo “expressly found” that the evidence, had it not been precluded, would have been too speculative to permit an award of damages, and granted Gallo’s motion pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) to dismiss. The plaintiff appeals, and we reverse.

“On a motion to dismiss pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (7), the facts alleged in the complaint are accepted as true, the plaintiff is accorded the benefit of every possible favorable inference, and the court’s function is to determine only whether the facts as alleged fit within any cognizable legal theory” (Biro v Roth, 121 AD3d 733, 735 [2014], citing Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83, 87-88 [1994]; Grant v LaTrace, 119 AD3d 646, 646-647 [2014]). “A cause of action to recover damages for legal **2 malpractice requires proof of three elements: (1) that the defendant failed to exercise that degree of care, skill, and diligence commonly possessed and exercised by an ordinary member of the legal community, (2) that such negligence was the proximate cause of the actual damages sustained by the plaintiff, and (3) that, but for the defendant’s negligence, the plaintiff would have been successful in the underlying action” (Cummings v Donovan, 36 AD3d 648, 648 [2007], citing Simmons v Edelstein, 32 AD3d 464 [2006]). According the plaintiff the benefit of every possible favorable inference, we conclude that the complaint states a cause of action.

A motion to dismiss a complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) (1) on the ground that a defense is founded on documentary evidence “may be appropriately granted only where the documentary*1056 evidence utterly refutes [the] plaintiff’s factual allegations, conclusively establishing a defense as a matter of law” (Goshen v Mutual Life Ins. Co. of N.Y., 98 NY2d 314, 326 [2002]; see Rodolico v Rubin & Licatesi, P.C., 114 AD3d 923 [2014]; Endless Ocean, LLC v Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley, Dubin & Quartararo, 113 AD3d 587 [2014]; Siracusa v Sager, 105 AD3d 937 [2013]).

Here, the Rizzo order does not utterly refute the allegations in the complaint, nor does it establish a defense as a matter of law. The order concludes, in part, that there was no proof of actual damages presented by the plaintiff, due to the plaintiff’s failure to respond to at least two of Rizzo’s discovery demands, which resulted in the preclusion of the damages evidence. The Rizzo order then states, referring to the precluded evidence, “[m]oreover, even if, arguendo the [c]ourt were to overlook that deficiency, its probative value is highly suspect” (4777 Food Servs. Corp. v Demartin & Rizzo, P.C., 2013 NY Slip Op 33007[U], *9 [2013]). Contrary to the Supreme Court’s conclusion, this alternate holding, which constitutes dicta, was not a finding on the merits and did not utterly refute the allegations in the complaint against Gallo (see O’Connor v G & R Packing Co., 53 NY2d 278 [1981]; Malloy v Trombley, 50 NY2d 46, 50 [1980]; Pollicino v Roemer & Featherstonhaugh, 277 AD2d 666, 667-668 [2000]). Accordingly, the Supreme Court should have denied Gallo’s motion pursuant to CPLR 3211 (a) to dismiss the complaint. Mastro, J.P., Sgroi, LaSalle and Connolly, JJ., concur.

R. A. Klass
Your Court Street Lawyer

Previous post
Next post

Valid cause of action

Posted on by

The First Department, in Caso v. Miranda Sambursky Sloane Sklarin Ver Veniotis LLP, held that the complaint for legal malpractice brought by a former client against his lawyers in a personal injury action stated a valid cause of action and should not have been dismissed upon the law firm’s motion to dismiss the action.

~ ~ ~

Caso v Miranda Sambursky Sloane Sklarin Ver Veniotis LLP

2017 NY Slip Op 03607 [150 AD3d 422]

May 4, 2017

Appellate Division, First Department

Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431.

As corrected through Wednesday, June 28, 2017

[*1] Thomas Caso, Appellant,
v
Miranda Sambursky Sloane Sklarin Ver Veniotis LLP et al., Respondents.

Alexander J. Wulwick, New York, for appellant.

Furman Kornfield & Brennan LLP, New York (A. Michael Furman of counsel), for respondents.

Order, Supreme Court, New York County (Carol R. Edmead, J.), entered May 26, 2016, which granted defendants’ motion to dismiss solely to the extent of dismissing the complaint for failure to state a cause of action, unanimously reversed, on the law, without costs, and the motion denied in its entirety. Order, same court and Justice, entered on or about October 31, 2016, which granted plaintiff’s motion insofar as it sought leave to reargue defendants’ motion to dismiss, denied plaintiff’s motion insofar as it sought leave to renew and to amend the complaint, and, upon reargument of the motion to dismiss, adhered to the original determination, unanimously reversed, on the law and the facts, without costs, leave to amend the complaint granted, and the appeal therefrom otherwise dismissed as academic.

In this legal malpractice action, plaintiff, the victim of a hit-and-run accident, alleges that defendants, who represented him in the underlying personal injury action, were negligent in failing to prepare and present the testimony of the sole eyewitness; that defendants’ negligence caused a verdict against him; and that he sustained actual damages. Specifically, plaintiff alleges that, prior to the eyewitness’s deposition testimony two years after the accident, defendants failed to refresh the eyewitness’s memory by showing him the police record of a phone call he made shortly after the accident, in which he described the hit-and-run vehicle as a green garbage truck with a flat front. The eyewitness then testified to the contrary at his deposition, stating that the garbage truck he remembered fleeing the scene had a round front, not a flat front. Plaintiff alleges that but for defendants’ negligence in handling the key witness in his case, he would have prevailed, as the driver operated a green garbage truck with a flat front, and the driver had already admitted to a route that would have placed him at the scene on the day and time of the accident. These allegations are sufficient to survive a CPLR 3211 (a) (1) and (7) motion to dismiss, as nothing in the record conclusively establishes a defense as a matter of law (see Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83, 87-88 [1994]) and plaintiff has adequately pleaded a claim for legal malpractice (see Global Bus. Inst. v Rivkin Radler LLP, 101 AD3d 651, 651 [1st Dept 2012]; see also Rudolf v Shayne, Dachs, Stanisci, Corker & Sauer, 8 NY3d 438, 442 [2007]).

[*2] Leave to amend is proper, since plaintiff’s proposed amendments are not “patently devoid of merit” and will not prejudice or surprise defendants (MBIA Ins. Corp. v Greystone & Co., Inc., 74 AD3d 499, 499 [1st Dept 2010]; see CPLR 3025 [b]). Concur—Sweeny, J.P., Gische, Kahn and Gesmer, JJ.

R. A. Klass
Your Court Street Lawyer

Previous post
Next post