Opinion ID: 2805595
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Judy's Legal Malpractice Complaint

Text: Judy pled that she employed Chester of the firm ChesterCestari Law for purposes of representing Judy in a criminal matter, and that this employment created an attorney-client 7 relationship. Judy pled that Chester breached his duties arising out of that attorney-client contractual relationship. And Judy pled that Chester's breach proximately caused certain pecuniary loss. 2 Had the alleged malpractice occurred in a civil matter, this would be sufficient for Judy's complaint to survive demurrer. However, Judy's pleading failed to satisfy the additional burden that a legal malpractice plaintiff's damages cannot be proximately caused by the plaintiff's criminal actions. The crux of Judy's argument is that her criminal conduct, in the absence of legal malpractice, would have resulted in a misdemeanor conviction with a ten-day incarceration sentence – which is what Judy was actually convicted of and sentenced to in the second criminal proceeding. Judy concedes, as she must, that any injury flowing from a misdemeanor conviction and a ten-day incarceration sentence for her assault on the law enforcement officer was therefore proximately caused by her criminal actions, and damages therefor are not recoverable in a 2 In her complaint, Judy pled both pecuniary and nonpecuniary damages. However, Judy's complaint was filed before we issued our opinion in Shevlin Smith v. McLaughlin, ___ Va. ___, 769 S.E.2d 7 (2015). In that case, we clarified that [a] legal malpractice plaintiff may recover only pecuniary damages proximately caused by an attorney's breach of the contractually implied duties arising from the attorney-client contract of representation. Id. at ___, ___, 769 S.E.2d at 15, 20. At oral argument, Judy's counsel conceded that Judy could recover only those pecuniary damages identified in the complaint. 8 legal malpractice action. But Judy contends that any damages proximately caused by her felony conviction and her six month incarceration sentence were not proximately caused by her criminal actions, and instead these damages were proximately caused by Chester's malpractice. According to Judy, absent Chester's malpractice, she would not have been convicted of a felony and would not have served a six month sentence, which led to her pecuniary damages. Judy's pleadings fail to support her arguments. That is, Judy failed to adequately plead that her attorney's legal malpractice, as opposed to her own commission of a criminal act, proximately caused the pecuniary damages alleged in her complaint. 1. Wrongful Severity Of Conviction: Legal Malpractice Proximately Causing The Felony Conviction The first aspect of Judy's original conviction that she alleges was proximately caused by Chester's legal malpractice is the fact that Judy was convicted of a felony, rather than of a misdemeanor. Judy's pleading adequately alleges that she would have been convicted of a misdemeanor, in the absence of Chester's legal malpractice, because she would have accepted the original misdemeanor plea offer. But this only satisfies half of Judy's burden. To adequately plead proximate causation, Judy must plead that the damages she seeks to 9 recover were proximately caused by legal malpractice and not by her own criminal conduct. Adkins, 253 Va. at 282, 482 S.E.2d at 802; W.S. Carnes, 252 Va. at 384, 478 S.E.2d at 300. In the context of this allegation and Judy's theory of the case, Judy must plead that the damages she seeks to recover were caused by her felony conviction, which was entered only because of legal malpractice, and would not have been caused by her misdemeanor conviction, which was properly entered as punishment for her criminal actions. The only relevant pecuniary damage, as pled in the complaint, was that Judy's nursing license was suspended . . . as a direct result of her felony conviction. This allegation can reasonably be understood to relate to the general averments in her complaint that she has been prevented from working and will be so prevented in the future, and having suffered lost wages[ and] damages related to her job and career. However, there is no allegation stating that, but for the felony conviction entered pursuant to Chester's negligence, Judy would not have lost her nursing license and suffered the corresponding pecuniary harm. Alternatively stated, Judy failed to plead that she would not have lost her nursing license based upon her conviction of misdemeanor assault and battery. And there is no reasonable basis, from the facts pled, to infer that Judy would have kept her nursing license if 10 she had been convicted of a misdemeanor. Therefore, Judy failed to plead damages flowing from her felony conviction that would not have been proximately caused by her misdemeanor conviction. 2. Wrongful Duration Of Sentence: Legal Malpractice Proximately Causing The Six Months Incarceration The second aspect of Judy's original conviction that she alleges was proximately caused by legal malpractice is that she was sentenced to six months of incarceration, rather than to the later sentence of ten days of incarceration with all ten days suspended. As an initial matter, Judy failed to specifically allege that she would have been sentenced to any particular length of incarceration absent Chester's malpractice. Instead, Judy's complaint quotes the habeas court's determination that there is a reasonabl[e] probability that but for [Chester's] deficient performance, the results of the [original criminal] proceeding would have been less severe than the judgment and sentence imposed. By incorporating the habeas court's determination as to prejudice affecting sentencing, Judy's pleading adequately alleges that she would have been sentenced to less than six months of incarceration. See McCord v. Bailey, 636 F.2d 606, 609 (D.C. Cir. 1980) ([T]he legal standards for ineffective assistance of counsel in [the criminal defendant/legal malpractice plaintiff's] 11 criminal proceedings and for legal malpractice in this action are equivalent.); Shaw v. Department of Admin., Pub. Defender Agency, 816 P.2d 1358, 1361 n.4 (Ala. 1991) (The burden of proof in the two proceedings[, an ineffective assistance proceeding and a legal malpractice proceeding,] is similar.); Glaze v. Larsen, 83 P.3d 26, 31 (Ariz. 2004) (Although the standard of proof imposed under Strickland arguably does not correspond precisely to the burden placed on a plaintiff in a legal malpractice action, the inquiry in each case is at the very least so similar that post-conviction proceedings often will provide definitive guidance as to whether any alleged legal malpractice actually occurred and/or was the cause of the defendant's conviction.); Barner v. Leeds, 13 P.3d 704, 712 (Cal. 2000) (The same standard of care governing claims of ineffective assistance of counsel applies in a civil legal malpractice action.); Rantz v. Kaufman, 109 P.3d 132, 139 (Colo. 2005) ([T]he standard for demonstrating prejudice in an ineffective assistance of counsel claim and the standard for establishing causation in a malpractice claim involve equivalent analyses.); Sanders v. Malik, 711 A.2d 32, 34 (Del. 1998) (The standards for proving ineffective assistance of counsel in a criminal proceeding are equivalent to the standards for proving legal malpractice in a civil proceeding.); Zeidwig v. Ward, 548 So. 2d 209, 214 (Fla. 1989) 12 (concluding that the standards for determining ineffective assistance of counsel in malpractice [are] essentially the same); Glenn v. Aiken, 569 N.E.2d 783, 785 (Mass. 1991) ([A]n appellate court's ruling that counsel was not ineffective may well justify precluding a criminal defendant from maintaining a malpractice action against his trial counsel.). However, this again only satisfies half of Judy's burden. The result of the habeas corpus proceeding does not answer the issue before us. A habeas court's determination on the ineffectiveness of a criminal defendant's counsel and subsequent prejudice to that defendant establishes that constitutionally deficient performance proximately caused the outcome in the original criminal proceeding. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). However, we must also look to the damages flowing from the outcome of the criminal matter. We must determine whether the pleadings properly allege that any of those damages were proximately caused by legal malpractice, rather than by the legal malpractice plaintiff's own criminal actions. Adkins, 253 Va. at 282, 482 S.E.2d at 802; W.S. Carnes, 252 Va. at 384, 478 S.E.2d at 300. Judy's complaint, as pled, fails to identify any pecuniary damages that were specifically caused by her six months of incarceration, and not by a sentence imposed absent Chester's malpractice – that is, and not by a sentence imposed because of 13 Judy's own criminal actions. And such damages cannot be reasonably inferred because there is no basis to determine what sentence a circuit court would have imposed in the original criminal proceeding had Chester not been negligent. This inability to determine such a sentence arises from the fact that a defendant convicted of misdemeanor assault and battery under Code § 18.2-57 is subject to a sentence of not more than twelve months of incarceration and a fine of $2,500, either or both. Code §§ 18.2-11(a); 18.2-57(A). Although Judy was eventually sentenced to only ten days, with all ten days suspended, that sentence and suspension occurred after she had already served her original six month sentence. According to Judy's complaint, the original misdemeanor plea offer was not accompanied by a sentence recommended by the Commonwealth. Even if such a recommendation had been made, there are no facts pled from which to draw the inference that, absent the legal malpractice, the circuit court would have imposed any shorter sentence than the six months that was imposed. A reviewing court has no basis to infer a particular sentence that the circuit court would have imposed had Judy been convicted of a misdemeanor, much less a sentence less than the six months of incarceration Judy endured pursuant to Chester's malpractice. We cannot reasonably infer, based upon the bare allegation that the circuit court imposed a ten day 14 suspended sentence after Judy had already been incarcerated for six months for the now-vacated felony, what compensable injury, if any, was caused by the sentence imposed in the first proceeding which was subject to the legal malpractice and not by Judy's own criminal actions.