Opinion ID: 2337229
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Malpractice Counterclaim

Text: In their legal malpractice counterclaim, the Jacksons challenged the attorneys' judgment regarding the viability of their claim against several Maine banks for conspiring to deny them credit; the attorneys' diligence in procuring a banking expert to support their position; and the attorneys' refusal to proceed on their claim without a banking expert. The Jacksons included only the affidavit of Bruce Jackson in support of their counterclaim for legal malpractice. The trial court ( Pierson, J. ) granted the attorneys' motion for a summary judgment on the Jacksons' counterclaims holding that [a]bsent expert testimony supporting [the Jacksons] assertions, [they] raise no genuine issue of material fact and their counterclaim fails as a matter of law. The Jacksons challenge this conclusion. Although we have not addressed the necessity of expert testimony to establish an attorney's standard of care and breach thereof in a legal malpractice case, we have decided, in claims for medical malpractice, that [i]t is incumbent upon the plaintiff to show by expert testimony that the treatment pursued by the defendant was something other than that which the average and reasonably skillful physician would have employed. Downer v. Veilleux, 322 A.2d 82, 87 (Me.1974) (emphasis added). Without supporting expert testimony in medical malpractice cases, the plaintiff fails to make a case for the jury. Richard H. Field & Peter L. Murray, Maine Evidence, § 702.1 at 7-13 (3d ed. 1992). We created an exception to this general rule, however, for circumstances where the negligence and harmful results are sufficiently obvious as to lie within common knowledge; in those situations, a verdict may be supported without expert testimony. Cyr v. Giesen, 150 Me. 248, 108 A.2d 316, 318 (1954). The majority of courts around the country have adopted the same general rule and exception for legal malpractice cases: expert evidence is required in a legal malpractice case to establish the attorney's breach of duty except in cases where the breach or lack thereof is so obvious that it may be determined by the Court as a matter of law, or is within the ordinary knowledge and experience of laymen. Michael A. DiSabatino, Annotation: Admissibility and Necessity of Expert Evidence as to Standards of Practice and Negligence in Malpractice Action Against Attorney, 14 A.L.R.4th 170, 173 (1982); see, e.g., Bloom v. Dieckmann, 11 Ohio App.3d 202, 464 N.E.2d 187, 188 (1983) (affirming summary judgment where client failed to produce any expert testimony on the issue of attorney's alleged negligence). We find this to be a sound principle. The question remaining in this case then is whether the case at bar is one where the breach or lack thereof is so obvious that it may be determined by the Court as a matter of law, or is within the ordinary knowledge and experience of laymen. Since the Jacksons are challenging the attorneys' judgment and diligence, the trial court did not commit reversible error by requiring expert testimony to support their claim of negligence. With no expert testimony to establish the attorneys' standard of care and a breach thereof, the Jacksons failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact and summary judgment was properly granted. The entry is: Judgments affirmed. All concurring.