{"id":4480,"date":"2003-06-10T12:02:19","date_gmt":"2003-06-10T16:02:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/formerlyknownas\/2003\/06\/10\/did-court-go-too-far-protecti"},"modified":"2011-08-05T15:00:55","modified_gmt":"2011-08-05T19:00:55","slug":"did-court-go-too-far-protecting-lawyers-from-punitive-damages","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/2003\/06\/10\/did-court-go-too-far-protecting-lawyers-from-punitive-damages\/","title":{"rendered":"Did Court Go Too Far Protecting Lawyers from Punitive Damages?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name='a51'><\/a><\/p>\n<p><FONT face=\"Arial\"><br \/>\n<P>The California Supreme Court held yesterday that a plaintiff in a legal malpractice action may not recover lost punitive damages as compensatory damages from the lawyer. The full opinion in the case of <I>Ferguson v. Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann &amp; Bernstein<\/I> (S10444,&nbsp;6\/9\/03) can be found at this <A href=\"http:\/\/www.courtinfo.ca.gov\/opinions\/documents\/S104444.PDF \"><STRONG>link<\/STRONG><\/A> (provided by <STRONG><A href=\"http:\/\/appellateblog.blogspot.com\/\">How Appealing<\/A><\/STRONG>). <\/P><br \/>\n<P>Three judges who concurred with the opinion&#8217;s application of the new rule in the class action setting dissented to its application to all cases. Writing in her concurring and dissenting opinion, <STRONG>Justice Joyce Kennard<\/STRONG> said the following about clients outside the class action context:<\/P><br \/>\n<UL><br \/>\n<P>&#8220;[T]he majority effectively denies such injured clients anything but a nominal recovery of compensatory damages, insulating the attorneys while failing to fully compensate the clients for the loss caused by the malpractice.&#8221; <\/P><\/UL><br \/>\n<P>According to Justice Kennard, <STRONG>just one other state<\/STRONG> completely insulates attorneys from liability for lost punitive damages in malpractice suits.&nbsp;&nbsp; Therefore, since insurance companies and lawyers have been living with that exposure, she says there is no need to go this far to prevent a malpractice crisis.&nbsp;&nbsp;[The Justice cites to 3 Mallen &amp; Smith, Legal Malpractice (5th ed. 2000) Damages, Sec. 20.7, for the general rule imposing the liability for lost punitive damages on lawyers.]<\/P><br \/>\n<P>Justice Kennard&nbsp;argues that &#8220;If the attorney has not performed competently, the attorney is liable for the client&#8217;s injury, including punitive damages lost to the client because of the attorney&#8217;s deficient performance.&#8221; <\/P><B><br \/>\n<P>Law.com <\/B>has an article <B><A href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/jsp\/article.jsp?id=1052440859731 \">today<\/A> <\/B>on <EM>Ferguson<\/EM>, as well as an <A href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/servlet\/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket\/Xcelerate\/View&amp;c=LawArticle&amp;cid=1015973979479&amp;t=LawArticleNo Lost Punitives for Attorney Negligence\"><STRONG>article from 2001<\/STRONG><\/A> about a California appellate court&nbsp;that reached a contrary conclusion.&nbsp;&nbsp; An <STRONG><A href=\"http:\/\/www.law.com\/servlet\/ContentServer?pagename=OpenMarket\/Xcelerate\/View&amp;c=LawArticle&amp;cid=1046833524051&amp;t=LawArticle\">earlier piece<\/A><\/STRONG> on <EM>Ferguson (<\/EM><FONT face=\"Arial\">March 7, 2003) notes that Ferguson&#8217;s lawyer in the malpractice suit, David Becht, &#8220;knows he&#8217;s not popular with his fellow lawyers on this issue. Not a single person or agency weighed in on his side in the form of an amicus, he said.&#8221;&nbsp; It adds: &#8220;His opponents would say that&#8217;s because the harm of allowing punitive damages for legal malpractice far outweighs any good.&#8221; <\/P><\/FONT><br \/>\n<P>Plaintiffs&#8217; personal injury lawyers and malpractice insurance companies (interesting bedfellows?) are breathing a big sigh of relief today. &nbsp;But, this is a perfect <B>&#8220;<I>ethicalEsq?<\/I> Moment&#8221; <\/B>&#8212; a chance to ask, not whether the decision makes life easier for lawyers, but whether it jibes with an attorney&#8217;s professional and fiduciary obligations to the client, and with basic fairness. <\/P><br \/>\n<P>In an article that will soon be published by the University of Illinois Law Review, Cardozo Law <B>Professor Lester Brickman<\/B>&nbsp;argues that lawyers <I>qua<\/I> judges have been busy insulating&nbsp;attorneys from fiduciary and professional obligations, while developing and applying such norms to other professions.&nbsp; Indeed, Brickman compares attorney efforts to obtain punitive damages from others (including professionals such as medical doctors), with cases that came to a result similar to yesterday&#8217;s <I>Ferguson<\/I> opinion and give lawyers immunity.&nbsp; <\/P><br \/>\n<P>What do <I>you <\/I>think? Please tell us with a Comment. <\/P><br \/>\n<BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P><STRONG>Two Cents<\/STRONG> from <STRONG>Jack Cliente<\/STRONG>:&nbsp; Isn&#8217;t the chance of getting big punitive damages a <STRONG>major&nbsp;part of the services<\/STRONG> and sales pitch of many lawyers?&nbsp; (It plays a big part in the career choice of more than a few attorneys, doesn&#8217;t it?)&nbsp;&nbsp; When a lawyer&#8217;s&nbsp;malpractice destroys that chance, why shouldn&#8217;t the client have a <EM>chance<\/EM> to prove a real loss and be compensated?&nbsp; <EM>What&#8217;s so different about lawyers as defendants<\/EM> that warrants that protection &#8212; other than the fact that lawyers make the rules?<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE><br \/>\n<P align=\"center\"><FONT face=\"Times New Roman,Times,Serif\" size=\"2\"><EM><STRONG>ethicalEsq?ethicalEsq?<\/STRONG><\/EM><\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<P><FONT face=\"Times New Roman,Times,Serif\"><FONT size=\"2\"><STRONG>Several thanks<\/STRONG> to <A href=\"http:\/\/www.socallawblog.com\/\"><STRONG>The Southern California Law Blog<\/STRONG><\/A>&nbsp;for mentioning us <EM>several<\/EM> times over the past few days.&nbsp; <\/FONT><\/FONT><\/P><br \/>\n<P dir=\"ltr\"><A href=\"http:\/\/www.socallawblog.com\/\"><\/A>&nbsp;<\/P><\/FONT><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The California Supreme Court held yesterday that a plaintiff in a legal malpractice action may not recover lost punitive damages as compensatory damages from the lawyer. The full opinion in the case of Ferguson v. Lieff, Cabraser, Heimann &amp; Bernstein (S10444,&nbsp;6\/9\/03) can be found at this link (provided by How Appealing). Three judges who concurred [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":94,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2926],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pre-06-2006"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kP1R-1ag","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/94"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14274,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4480\/revisions\/14274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/ethicalesq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}