Justia Professional Malpractice & Ethics Opinion Summaries

Allison Littlefield filed a verified petition against her brothers, Scott and David Littlefield, and her aunt, Denise Sobel, who are co-trustees of The Pony Tracks Ranch Trust. The petition sought their removal as co-trustees, alleging breaches of fiduciary duty and the Trust, and requested declaratory and injunctive relief. Allison claimed that the appellants misused Trust funds, concealed information, converted her personal property, restricted her use of the Ranch, and failed to address misconduct by an employee, Stacey Limbada, who allegedly harassed Allison and her husband.The San Mateo County Superior Court denied the appellants' special motion to strike the petition under California's anti-SLAPP statute, concluding that the appellants failed to show that Allison's petition arose from protected activity. The court also denied Allison's request for attorney's fees, finding that the motion was not frivolous or solely intended to cause unnecessary delay.The California Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, Division Four, reviewed the case. The court affirmed the trial court's denial of the anti-SLAPP motion, agreeing that the appellants did not meet their burden of showing that the petition was based on protected activity. The court noted that the appellants' motion failed to identify specific allegations of protected activity and improperly sought to strike the entire petition or all causes of action without distinguishing between protected and unprotected conduct.However, the appellate court reversed the trial court's denial of Allison's request for attorney's fees, finding that the anti-SLAPP motion was frivolous. The court held that any reasonable attorney would agree that the motion was totally devoid of merit, as it did not demonstrate that the petition sought to impose liability based on protected activity. The case was remanded for a determination of the appropriate award of attorney's fees for Allison. View "Littlefield v. Littlefield" on Justia Law

A credit union filed a claim in probate court, asserting that the decedent owed money on a car loan. The estate mailed a notice of disallowance to the credit union, but the credit union claimed it never received the notice. The estate argued that the claim was time-barred because the credit union did not request a hearing within twenty days of the notice. The credit union conducted an internal investigation and submitted an affidavit stating it never received the notice and that the person who signed for it was not an employee of the credit union but an agent of the U.S. Postal Service.The Iowa District Court for Linn County imposed sanctions on the credit union and its attorneys for violating Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.413(1), which requires that filings be well-grounded in fact and law after reasonable inquiry. The court found that the credit union's investigation was insufficient and that the attorneys made incorrect assertions about the mailing. The Iowa Court of Appeals upheld the sanctions.The Iowa Supreme Court reviewed the case and concluded that the district court abused its discretion in awarding sanctions. The Supreme Court found that the credit union and its counsel conducted a reasonable investigation under the circumstances, given the time constraints and the information available. The court emphasized that the reasonableness of the investigation should be assessed based on the time of the filing, not with hindsight. The Supreme Court vacated the decision of the Court of Appeals, sustained the writ of certiorari, vacated the sanctions, and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Dupaco Community Credit Union v. Iowa District Court for Linn County" on Justia Law

Jeffrey G. Grossman and his family sued attorney John Peter Wakeman, Jr. and Wakeman Law Group, Inc. for legal malpractice. The plaintiffs claimed that Wakeman negligently prepared estate planning documents for Dr. A. Richard Grossman, which disinherited them in favor of Richard's fourth wife, Elizabeth Grossman. Richard's estate was valued at $18 million, and the plaintiffs argued they were the intended beneficiaries. The jury found in favor of the plaintiffs, awarding $9.5 million in damages.The Ventura County Superior Court denied Wakeman's motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. Wakeman appealed, arguing that he owed no duty of care to the plaintiffs, as they were not his clients. He contended that his duty was solely to Richard, who had instructed him to leave everything to Elizabeth.The California Court of Appeal, Second Appellate District, Division Six, reviewed the case. The court concluded that the evidence was insufficient to show that Wakeman owed a duty of care to the plaintiffs. The court emphasized that there was no clear, certain, and undisputed evidence of Richard's intent to benefit the plaintiffs. Testimonies from Elizabeth and others supported Wakeman's claim that Richard intended to leave his estate to Elizabeth. The court held that imposing a duty on Wakeman to the plaintiffs would place an intolerable burden on the legal profession.The Court of Appeal reversed the judgments and remanded the case to the trial court with directions to enter judgment in favor of Wakeman and his law group. The appeal from the order denying the motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict was dismissed as moot. View "Grossman v. Wakeman" on Justia Law

Pauline Bennett, the settlor of a revocable living trust, engaged attorney Thomas Gentile to draft her estate planning documents. Initially, the trust instrument provided for the distribution of her properties, including a specific property, Wissahican, to her daughter Audrey upon her death. Later, due to concerns about Audrey's financial mismanagement, Pauline amended the trust to remove Audrey as a beneficiary and intended to sell Wissahican to fund her care. After Pauline's death, a dispute arose between her daughters, Madelyn and Audrey, over the ownership of Wissahican.The Circuit Court for Montgomery County ruled that the 2017 trust instrument, which provided Wissahican to Audrey, was still in effect, and thus Audrey was entitled to the property. Madelyn, as the successor trustee, then pursued claims against Gentile for legal malpractice, alleging that his negligent drafting of the 2019 trust instrument caused her to lose Wissahican. The circuit court granted summary judgment in favor of Gentile, holding that the strict privity rule barred Madelyn's claims and that she was not a third-party beneficiary of the attorney-client relationship between Pauline and Gentile.The Supreme Court of Maryland reviewed the case and affirmed the circuit court's decision. The court held that the strict privity rule, as established in Noble v. Bruce, remains good law, meaning that a third party not in privity with an attorney cannot sue for negligence absent fraud or collusion. The court also concluded that Madelyn did not qualify as a third-party beneficiary because the primary intent of Pauline's engagement with Gentile was to ensure her own financial security and to exclude Audrey, not to benefit Madelyn directly. Therefore, Madelyn's claims against Gentile were barred, and the summary judgment in favor of Gentile was affirmed. View "Bennett v. Gentile" on Justia Law

This case involves a legal malpractice claim brought by Anne Fahey, Timothy Fife, and Richard Fife (Plaintiffs) against their former attorneys, Andrew Cook, Lukas Andrud, and Ohnstad Twichell, P.C. (Defendants). The claim stems from Defendants' representation of Plaintiffs in a previous case concerning the distribution of their mother's estate. The mother, Marianne Fife, owned a mineral interest in North Dakota and was a resident of Idaho when she died intestate. She had conveyed her mineral interest to her husband, Richard Fife, shortly before her death. Plaintiffs sued their father's estate, claiming their mother lacked capacity to execute the deed due to medication and undue influence from their father. The district court rescinded the deed but held that the mineral interest still passed to Richard Fife under North Dakota's intestate succession laws.The district court's decision was affirmed on appeal. Plaintiffs then initiated a malpractice action against Defendants, alleging negligence in the underlying litigation by failing to contest the validity of a quitclaim deed for their mother's interest in an Idaho home and failing to argue that their mother's estate had a cause of action against their father's estate. Plaintiffs claimed that if Defendants had taken these actions, the value of their mother's estate would have increased, and they would have received some of the minerals under intestate succession laws.The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendants, concluding that they did not breach their duty to Plaintiffs and that Plaintiffs did not suffer damages caused by the alleged breach of duty. The court reasoned that even if Plaintiffs had successfully taken the suggested actions, they still would not have received their mother's mineral interests.On appeal, Plaintiffs argued that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on their legal malpractice claims. They contended that the court erred in concluding that their mother's estate, for valuation and distribution purposes, did not include real or personal property outside of North Dakota. They also argued that Defendants were collaterally estopped from arguing that their mother's interest in the Idaho home and personal property would never be part of the estate.The Supreme Court of North Dakota affirmed the district court's judgment. The court concluded that the district court did not err in holding that collateral estoppel does not apply in this case. The court also held that the district court correctly concluded that the Idaho home would not have been part of the mother's North Dakota intestate estate because it was community property and would have passed to the father as a matter of law. Therefore, the court found that Defendants' alleged failure to challenge the Idaho quitclaim deed's validity and argue that the mother's estate had a cause of action against the father's estate did not proximately cause Plaintiffs any damages. View "Fahey v. Cook" on Justia Law

The case involves the trustees of the Stanley and Sandra Goldberg Trusts, C. Leon Nelson and Marilynn Tetrick, who hired legal counsel to assist them in their duties. The same attorneys later defended them in a lawsuit brought by several beneficiaries of the trusts. The jury found that the trustees had breached their fiduciary duties, and the district court entered a judgment against them, most of which was payable to the trusts. The court then removed the trustees and appointed successor trustees. The former trustees, still represented by the same attorneys, asked the court to reduce the amount of the judgment against them. The successor trustees moved to disqualify the former trustees’ attorneys, arguing that a conflict had surfaced under rule 1.9(a) of the Utah Rules of Professional Conduct. The district court agreed and disqualified the attorneys.On appeal, the Supreme Court of the State of Utah reversed the district court's decision. The Supreme Court held that an attorney-client relationship does not automatically arise merely because an attorney represents a trustee. In this case, the attorneys represented the former trustees only, not the trusts, which were not named in the suit. Thus, because the attorneys never represented the trusts in the litigation, rule 1.9(a) does not prevent the attorneys from continuing to represent the former trustees. View "In re Estate of Goldberg" on Justia Law

In Minnesota, a district court removed Brian Lipschultz as a trustee from the Otto Bremer Trust. This decision was based on his violation of Minnesota Statutes section 501C.0706(b)(1), which allows for the removal of a trustee for a “serious breach of trust.” The breaches included Lipschultz's misuse of trust resources for personal purposes, offensive behavior during a stock dispute, manipulation of a grantee, and failure to disclose his successor. Lipschultz appealed this decision, arguing that the district court and court of appeals applied an incorrect legal standard for removal and that they abused their discretion in removing him under section 501C.0706(b)(1). However, the Minnesota Supreme Court affirmed the decision of the court of appeals, stating that the district court did not abuse its broad discretion when it determined that Lipschultz committed “a serious breach of trust” under section 501C.0706(b)(1). The court concluded that Lipschultz breached the duty of loyalty and the duty of information, demonstrating a pattern of placing his personal priorities over the duties he owed to the Trust. View "In the Matter of the Otto Bremer Trust" on Justia Law

In the State of Maine v. Dale F. Thistle, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court upheld the conviction of Dale Thistle, an attorney, for theft by misapplication of property. Thistle was hired by Donna Friend, personal representative of the estate of Gilman Friend, to explore a potential wrongful death suit against emergency responders. Thistle negotiated a settlement of $390,000, which he deposited into his Interest on Lawyer’s Trust Account (IOLTA). Thistle then misappropriated the funds, failing to distribute the owed amount to Gilman's children, and instead frequently withdrawing money for personal expenses.Thistle appealed his conviction on several grounds, including that the trial court erred by not granting his motion for acquittal due to a statute of limitations defense, the court erred in its instructions to the jury on the Maine Rules of Professional Conduct, the State committed prosecutorial error, and that the evidence was insufficient to convict him.The Supreme Judicial Court rejected all of Thistle's arguments. The court found that Thistle had waived his statute of limitations defense by admitting facts that tolled the limitations period. The court also held that the prosecutor's statements during closing arguments did not constitute error. Finally, the court ruled that there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that Thistle intentionally or recklessly failed to pay the settlement funds to Gilman's children and used the money as his own, thereby committing theft by misapplication of property. View "State v. Thistle" on Justia Law

In this case, Lindsay Burns Barbier contested the validity of the 2016 will of her father, Horatio Burns, alleging that her brother Cameron and his wife Alison exerted undue influence over Horatio. The Supreme Court of the State of Montana upheld the validity of the will and the awarding of attorney fees to Horatio’s Estate, but reversed the awarding of attorney fees to Alison and the calculation of interest on the attorney fees. The court found that the lower court did not err in allowing Alison to file a response to Lindsay's petition contesting the will, despite Lindsay's objection that it was untimely and that Alison's interests were fully represented by the Estate. The court also found that Lindsay was not entitled to a new trial based on juror misconduct. In terms of attorney fees, the court determined that Alison was not entitled to an award of fees under state law as she was defending her own interest in the will and her participation was not required to defend the validity of the will. Finally, the court found that the lower court incorrectly calculated the applicable interest rate on the attorney fees awarded to the Estate. View "In re Burns" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs sued Defendant and the law firm (collectively, the lawyers) for legal malpractice on the theory that the lawyers in drafting the LLC operating agreements did not adhere to the intent of their mother’s trust. The lawyers moved for summary judgment on three grounds—namely, (1) they owed Plaintiffs no duty of care, (2) Plaintiffs’ claim was time-barred, and (3) the parties had too contingent of an interest to have standing to sue. The trial court granted summary judgment. Specifically, the court ruled that Plaintiffs had presented “no evidence of decedent’s” intent to disinherit specific grandchildren from obtaining membership interests in the LLCs, such that the lawyers owed Plaintiffs no duty to effectuate that intent.   The Second Appellate District affirmed. The court concluded that the lawyers did not owe Plaintiffs a duty to draft the LLC operating agreements in a way that disinherited decedent’s grandchildren because decedent’s intent to disinherit the specific grandchildren from being assigned any interest in the LLCs was not, as a matter of law, clear, certain or undisputed. Further, the court wrote that because summary judgment was properly granted due to the absence of any duty running from the lawyers to Plaintiffs, the court does not have occasion to reach the alternative grounds for affirmance (namely, that Plaintiffs’ claims are time-barred or that the parties lack standing.) View "Gordon v. Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP" on Justia Law