Legal Malpractice And Intervening Cause

The New Mexico Court of Appeals has reversed a favorable ruling to the defendant in a legal malpractice case

Roland Lucero and his company, R & L Straightline Tile, (collectively, Plaintiff) appeal from a judgment entered in favor of Defendant Richard Sutten following a bench trial on the issue of legal malpractice. The district court found that Defendant negligently failed to apprise Plaintiff of the dangers of providing an unsecured $300,000 loan to a Las Vegas development company. However, the district court applied the doctrine of independent intervening cause, a defense that had not been previously raised in Defendant’s proposed findings prior to trial, and concluded that the real estate market collapse of the mid-to-late 2000s severed the connection between Defendant’s professional negligence and Plaintiff’s damages claimed therefrom. On appeal, Plaintiff argues that the district court erred in applying the doctrine of independent intervening cause to these facts. We agree. We reverse and remand for consideration of damages in light of this Opinion.

The court

The district court should not have dismissed this case but, instead, it should have determined whether Defendant’s negligence was the proximate cause of Plaintiff’s loss and, if applicable, employed a standard comparative fault analysis.

(Mike Frisch)