Allegations Conclusory Or “Utterly Refuted”
The New York Appellate Division for the Second Judicial Department has reversed a trial court order and dismissed a legal malpractice claim by a client against her former divorce attorneys.
The plaintiff’s former husband commenced an action for a divorce and ancillary relief against her, and the plaintiff retained the appellants to represent her in that action. Prior to trial, the plaintiff and her former husband entered into a stipulation of settlement on the record in open court, which ended that case. Approximately two years later, the plaintiff commenced this action to recover damages for, among other things, legal malpractice. The plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that the appellants failed to ascertain the full extent of her former husband’s assets and failed to adequately explain the stipulation of settlement to her. The appellants moved pursuant to CPLR 3211(a) to dismiss the complaint insofar as asserted against them. The Supreme Court, among other things, denied the appellants’ motion. We reverse insofar as appealed from.
The malpractice claims fail because
Here, to the extent that the complaint asserted that the appellants were negligent in failing to ascertain the full extent of the assets of the plaintiff’s former husband, it failed to sufficiently allege that the stipulation of settlement entered into was effectively compelled by the mistakes of counsel, since the plaintiff acknowledged that she elected to enter into the settlement agreement even though she was aware that her former husband had not fully disclosed his assets…
The allegation that, but for the appellants’ alleged negligence, the plaintiff would have received a more favorable settlement offer from her former husband is conclusory and speculative…In addition, to the extent that the complaint alleged that the plaintiff was not advised about certain aspects of the stipulation of settlement pertaining to the marital residence, the transcript of the court proceedings submitted by the appellants, wherein the attorneys set forth the terms of the stipulation, utterly refuted those factual allegations.
(Mike Frisch)