Opinion ID: 1198866
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Henderson Account

Text: William Henderson, a building contractor, had been a client of Dann's since early 1990. In 1992, Dann worked on a claim involving the North Cascades Visitor Center project. Henderson specifically requested that just one attorney, Dann, and one claims analyst, Graham (who Henderson considered to be extremely competent), work on the case. TP at 167. During the course of the work Henderson believed that Graham was working on the claim because he met with Graham and Dann at the project site in June 1992 and was told by Dann that Graham was working on the claim for months after that. In fact, Graham had discontinued his work on the project following the death of his parents shortly after meeting with Henderson. The law firm's other claims analyst, William Werner, took over Graham's work. Billing statements sent to Henderson in July and August showed that Graham was still working on the claim, when in fact Werner was. This misrepresentation began with the WIPs. On one WIP, for example, Dann crossed out Werner's initials and substituted Graham'sinstructing, though, that Werner should get credit for hours. Ex. 3E. On another WIP, the bookkeeper wrote as follows: Per Wade [Dann] reenter DG. WJW [William J. Werner] gets credit. No credit to DG. Ex. 3B. On a third WIP, the bookkeeper made the following notation: Per WRD [Wade R. Dann] delete WJW. Replace DG. Ex. 3C. On a number of occasions Dann also told Henderson that Graham was working on the claim when, in fact, Graham was not and had actually left DGR. DGR wrote off time so that Henderson would not be overbilled, resulting in a slight underbilling in the aggregate. However, Henderson felt that his construction claim was so damaged by Werner's involvement that no work should have been billed in the first place. He indicated, [H]ow can you give me money back when you didn't do anything? TP at 179. Of Werner, he said that I came to the conclusion that he couldn't tell the inside of the building from the outside of the building. He knew nothing about construction. TP at 172. In contrast, he felt that Graham was one of the best construction people that I'd ever met. TP at 172. Henderson subsequently sued Dann and DGR. The matter was settled in mediation, and Dann's firm paid a $20,000 malpractice insurance deductible. Dann has expressed remorse over this matter.