Opinion ID: 1436492
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: The Final Summary Judgment Order

Text: The trial court cited a number of reasons why summary judgment was warranted as to Ms. Flax's claims that had not already been dismissed through the partial summary judgment ruling. We need not discuss them in any detail here, because we agree that the fatal flaw in Ms. Flax's case was the lack of an expert witness who would opine that the Lawyers breached the standard of care. [I]n a legal malpractice action, the plaintiff must present expert testimony establishing the standard of care unless the attorney's lack of care and skill is so obvious that the trier of fact can find negligence as a matter of common knowledge. O'Neil v. Bergan, 452 A.2d 337, 341 (D.C.1982). [13] The kind of care and skill that can be found within the jury's common knowledge may include typical failures to act; for example, allowing the statute of limitations to run on the client's claim [], or permitting entry of a default against the client. . . . Id. at 342. We agree with the trial judge that the allegations of attorney negligence in the Amended Complaint do not relate to matters that fall within the common knowledge exception to the requirement for expert testimony. To understand whether the Lawyers were negligent in failing to bring one or more additional intentional tort claims or in failing to advise Flax about the potential impact of a bankruptcy petition, and whether a loss to Mr. Flax was occasioned by their failure to do so, a jury would need to understand the elements of each tort, the measure of available damages, the availability and strength of the proof in support of the claim(s), the validity of the Lawyers' reasoning that lay behind any choices they made about claims to pursue, what types of debts were dischargeable under bankruptcy law at the time the Lawyers prepared their counterclaims, and many other factors that an expert who is an expert trial lawyer would understand, but that would not likely have been within the common knowledge of a jury. Cf. Mills v. Cooter, 647 A.2d 1118, 1122 (D.C.1994) (noting that there was expert testimony at trial that established that reasonable attorneys could differ with regard to the feasibility and propriety of a suit against the individuals that the clients believed their attorneys should have sued). The trial judge did not err or abuse his discretion in dismissing Ms. Flax's remaining claims because she had no legal expert who could evaluate the Lawyers' performance and opine as to whether they had breached the standard of care and had occasioned a loss to the Estate. [14] Finally, we note that, as the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recognized in Halberstam v. Welch, 227 U.S.App. D.C. 167, 705 F.2d 472, 479 (D.C.Cir.1983), [t]he separate tort of aiding-abetting has not yet, to our knowledge, been recognized explicitly in the District. [15] The uncertainty, at the time of the underlying litigation, about whether this court would recognize the aiding-and-abetting-bad faith-litigation claim that Ms. Flax contends should have been brought as a third-party claim against Laidlaw and Miscoll (and, indeed, whether we would recognize any claim for aiding and abetting a tort) significantly (if not fatally) undermines any claim that the Lawyers were negligent in failing to bring such a claim. An attorney is not liable for an error of judgment regarding an unsettled proposition of law. Mills, 647 A.2d at 1122; cf. Baker v. Dorfman, 239 F.3d 415, 420 (2d Cir.2000) (analyzing whether New York would recognize a cause of action for negligent infliction of emotional distress predicated on an HIV-test misdiagnosis before going on to determine whether plaintiff sustained damages from her attorney's late-filing of such a claim). [16]