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PLAINTIFF, WHICH ULTIMATELY WON THE PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT, ALLEGED MALPRACTICE IN THE BRINGING OF CERTAIN MOTIONS; HAD THE MOTIONS WON, IT WAS ALLEGED, $10 MILLION IN LEGAL FEES WOULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED; THE MALPRACTICE ACTION WAS PROPERLY DISMISSED.

The First Department determined the legal malpractice action by plaintiff (Brookwood) against defendant law firm (A & B) was properly dismissed. The law firm defended plaintiff in a patent infringement action which eventually won (with new lawyers). Plaintiff incurred legal fees of $10 million. In this malpractice action, plaintiff alleged its legal fees would have been much lower had the law firm won certain motions early on in the case:

A focal point of this appeal is Brookwood’s claim that A & B, in the patent action, negligently litigated defenses that were available to Brookwood pursuant to 28 USC § 1498. 28 USC § 1498 provides that when a patent is infringed for the benefit of the United States government, the patent holder’s remedy is against the United States in the United States Court of Federal Claims. Brookwood alleges that had A & B not been negligent, the motions that A & B eventually brought based on 28 USC § 1498 would have been granted and Brookwood would have avoided the approximately $10 million it expended on defending itself at trial and on appeal. Important in this analysis is the fact that Brookwood ultimately prevailed in the underlying patent action, achieving a judgment of noninfringement. The theory of Brookwood’s malpractice case is not that but for A & B’s negligence it would have prevailed in the patent action; rather Brookwood’s claim is that but for the manner in which A & B interposed the defenses available to Brookwood under 28 USC § 1498, Brookwood would have prevailed without incurring the additional legal fees it expended. In other words, but for A & B’s negligence, Brookwood could have achieved the same result more expeditiously and economically. The Supreme Court granted A & B’s motion and dismissed the complaint in its entirety, holding, among other things, that the allegations did not support a finding of attorney negligence or of proximate cause. We now affirm. * * *

Decisions regarding the evidentiary support for a motion or the legal theory of a case are commonly strategic decisions and a client’s disagreement with its attorney’s strategy does not support a malpractice claim, even if the strategy had its flaws. “[A]n attorney is not held to the rule of infallibility and is not liable for an honest mistake of judgment where the proper course is open to reasonable doubt” … . Moreover, an attorney’s selection of one among several reasonable courses of action does not constitute malpractice … . Brookwood has not alleged facts supporting its claim that A & B’s evidentiary decision, to rely on [the plaintiff’s] expert, rather than compromise the merits of Brookwood’s position on other arguments, was an unreasonable course of action. Brookwood Cos., Inc. v Alston & Bird LLP, 2017 NY Slip Op 00535, 1st Dept 1-26-17

 

ATTORNEYS (LEGAL MALPRACTICE, PLAINTIFF, WHICH ULTIMATELY WON THE PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT, ALLEGED MALPRACTICE IN THE BRINGING OF CERTAIN MOTIONS, HAD THE MOTIONS WON, IT WAS ALLEGED, $10 MILLION IN LEGAL FEES WOULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, THE MALPRACTICE ACTION WAS PROPERLY DISMISSED)/LEGAL MALPRACTICE (PLAINTIFF, WHICH ULTIMATELY WON THE PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT, ALLEGED MALPRACTICE IN THE BRINGING OF CERTAIN MOTIONS, HAD THE MOTIONS WON, IT WAS ALLEGED, $10 MILLION IN LEGAL FEES WOULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, THE MALPRACTICE ACTION WAS PROPERLY DISMISSED)/NEGLIGENCE (LEGAL MALPRACTICE, PLAINTIFF, WHICH ULTIMATELY WON THE PATENT INFRINGEMENT SUIT, ALLEGED MALPRACTICE IN THE BRINGING OF CERTAIN MOTIONS, HAD THE MOTIONS WON, IT WAS ALLEGED, $10 MILLION IN LEGAL FEES WOULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED, THE MALPRACTICE ACTION WAS PROPERLY DISMISSED)

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