I agree with the overwhelming majority of what Justice Hoffstadt says here. Indeed, at least facially, I'm stunned that the plaintiff got as much as he did -- and certainly don't think he has much to complain about vis-a-vis his lawyer.
It's a legal malpractice claim involving an underlying personal injury case. The plaintiff is unhappy with the settlement amount negotiated by his lawyer. The injuries were substantial, but so was the settlement: over $6 million.
That's a chunk of change for an auto accident, no?
That was particularly my perspective here given the underlying facts. Yes, the plaintiff was rear ended. That's usually a pretty good case for liability. Usually.
But here, for one thing, plaintiff was under the influence of amphetamines and benzodiazepines at the time of the accident. That's not an especially great look. Particularly when that resulted in the plaintiff electing to stop his Porche 911 on the 134 Freeway in Burbank at 4:20 a.m. That might rightly be viewed as a fair amount of contributory negligence, right?
But at least when plaintiff "put the car in park, locked the doors, took off his shoes, reclined his seat, pulled the key out of the ignition, took off his seat belt, and fell asleep," he did so in a safe place on the 134 Freeway, right? A rest area or someplace like that?
Uh, no. He put his car into park and decided to fall asleep in the fast lane of the 134 Freeway.
No wonder he got rear ended, right?
Given these facts, I think a $6 million-plus settlement was fantastic. Indeed, I'm fairly stunned that our system works that way. Were I on the jury, most likely, I would have given the plaintiff far, far less than what he ultimately obtained.
Nonetheless, he still sues his lawyer. Claiming that the settlement was unauthorized.
The Court of Appeal nonetheless affirms the grant of summary judgment to the defendant law firm because the plaintiff ultimately retroactively agreed to the settlement. Holding that this retroactive agreement negates the legal malpractice claim for an unauthorized settlement.
There's a lot to be said for that result. As I said, I'm pretty much on board for Justice Hoffstadt's opinion. As well as not particularly inclined to think that the law firm's $6 million settlement was anywhere near too low.
My only marginal thought the other way involves the Court of Appeal's discussion of what counts as economic duress in this setting.
The law is that you're precluded from complaining about a settlement if you retroactively approve it, but not if your retroactive approval was under duress (which is what plaintiff here asserts). The Court of Appeal explains lots of good reasons why the plaintiff here wasn't under duress, and I generally agree.
But I wonder if there isn't a different, more general, type of "economic loss" at issue here -- one that, if argued, might argue for a different result.
Once plaintiff repudiated the settlement as unauthorized, the defendant promptly moved to enforce the settlement, since (after all) it was made with the plaintiff's agent. So there's a pending motion in that regard, and the defendant wants to interpose the facially valid settlement as an affirmative defense at trial.
As a result, at that point, to me, the plaintiff's not really facing the kind of pure unvarnished "should I accept the settlement or not" choice that the Court of Appeal perceives it to be. Instead, the question is really "Is it really worth continuing to fight this case given the new affirmative defense and motion to enforce the settlement?" That's different.
At a minimum, it's going to cost the plaintiff some time and money to fight the motion to enforce the settlement. That's a downside. In one world, that might well constitute sufficient "economic loss" to justify the duress rule. Maybe the plaintiff would ordinarily have decided to take his chances at trial, but the material difference now is that he doesn't want to spend that additional six months fighting just to potentially have a trier of fact moot out the fight by holding that the settlement agreement is enforceable.
In short, there's at least a duress component now that didn't exist before. A component that's not discussed in Justice Hoffstadt's opinion, but that might well make a difference either here and/or in other cases.
Or at least that's my take.
