Lessons from Recent Utah Legal Malpractice Cases

JurisdictionUtah,United States
Pages12
Publication year2008
CitationVol. 21 No. 1 Pg. 12
Date01 January 2008
Utah Bar Journal
Volume 21.

Vol. 21, No. 1, 12. Lessons from Recent Utah Legal Malpractice Cases

Utah Bar Journal
Vol. 21, No. 1
January/February 2008

Lessons from Recent Utah Legal Malpractice Cases

Lessons from Recent Utah Legal Malpractice Cases

by Michael Skolnick

We can all learn from our mistakes. But it's likely less painful to learn from other's mistakes - either actual or alleged. This article is offered in that spirit - a compilation of some recent Utah attorney malpractice cases containing a grab bag of valuable lessons for every day practitioners. "Recent" is arbitrarily defined as the last two years

Utah's most recent attorney malpractice case is Crestwood Cove Apartments Business Trust v. Turner 2007 UT 48, 164 P.3d 1247 (Utah 2007). In Crestwood Cove, the former client claimed that the appellee had committed malpractice by failing to timely contest the application of Utah's unlawful detainer statute and its treble damage provision, and by failing to raise the appropriate measure of damages. The underlying unlawful detainer case is almost comical in its mishandling. Prior to the appellee's representation, Crestwood had been represented by a succession of other attorneys. Due to the client's inattentiveness

and various contributions by a variety of counsel Crestwood's opponent transformed a judgment for several thousand dollars into ownership of an apartment complex worth millions.

In this case, the appellee unsuccessfully argued to the trial court that it should not have trebled damages in setting the redemption price for the apartment complex. The trial court, as it turns out incorrectly, disagreed and set a redemption price of nearly $1,000,000. Crestwood appealed the trial court's decision, but eventually settled its claims in the underlying case and dismissed its appeal. Crestwood then filed a legal malpractice action against appellee.

Appellee moved for summary judgment, based on the doctrine of abandonment. Appellee argued that by settling the appeal in the underlying case, the former client effectively precluded appellee from proving that it was judicial error and not attorney error which caused the adverse outcome in the underlying case.

The trial court in the malpractice action agreed and granted appellee's Motion for Summary Judgment. However, the Utah Supreme Court refused to apply the abandonment doctrine instead upholding the summary judgment on proximate cause grounds. The supreme court concluded there was no reason to adopt the abandonment doctrine because the existing framework for legal malpractice actions in Utah adequately protects attorneys' rights, even when there has been a settlement of the underlying...

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