Opinion ID: 163606
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Legal Malpractice Claims.

Text: The district court granted defendants’ motion for partial summary judgment on Mr. Smith’s legal malpractice claims. Ms. Hook appeals this ruling–something she must have standing to do. This “irreducible constitutional minimum” of standing requires: (1) that the plaintiff have suffered an “injury in fact”--an invasion of a judicially cognizable interest which is (a) concrete and particularized and (b) actual or imminent, not conjectural or hypothetical; (2) that there be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of--the injury must be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court; and (3) that it be likely, as opposed to merely speculative, that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Bennett v. Spear , 520 U.S. 154, 167 (1997) (quoting Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife , 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992)); see also In re Grand Jury , 111 F.3d 1066, 1071 (3d Cir. 1997) (“The same constitutional minima for standing to sue [i.e., injury in fact, causation, and redressibility] are also required for standing to appeal.”). In the appellate context, “one must be aggrieved by the order from which appeal is taken.” Uselton v. Commercial Lovelace Motor Freight, Inc. , 9 F.3d 849, 854 (10th Cir. 1993). And “[t]he law is well-settled that a party is generally not aggrieved by, and thus lacks standing to appeal from, a judgment rendered against a co-party.” Penda Corp. v. United States, 44 F.3d 967, 971 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Here, the legal malpractice claims were brought by Mr. Smith before Ms. Hook was a party to the suit. And it follows that the judgment on those -5- claims was entered against the party who brought them, Mr. Smith. Although defendants joined Ms. Hook as a defendant on their contract claim before judgment on the malpractice claims was entered, that did not change the fact that the judgment on the malpractice claims was entered not against Ms. Hook, but against her co-party. To overcome this standing obstacle, Ms. Hook makes a narrow argument attempting to show she was aggrieved by the judgment against her co-party. In support of her standing, Ms. Hook points to her potential liability as a party to the fee agreement for defendants’ legal representation of Mr. Smith. She argues that she is aggrieved by the dismissal of Mr. Smith’s malpractice claims because it may affect her ability to allege defendants’ malpractice in defense of their fee-contract claim, which was remanded to state court. Because injury-in-fact requires an invasion of a legally protected interest that is actual or imminent, and not conjectural or hypothetical, “[t]his court’s focus is on past and present injury; possible future injury is insufficient to create standing.” Keyes v. Sch. Dist. No. 1, 119 F.3d 1437, 1445 (10th Cir. 1997). And while unrealized but imminent harm can satisfy the injury-in-fact element, the Supreme Court has cautioned that the concept of imminence “cannot be stretched beyond its purpose, which is to ensure that the alleged injury is not too speculative for Article III -6- purposes–that the injury is certainly impending.” Lujan, 504 U.S. at 564 n.2 (quotation omitted). The injury that Ms. Hook alleges cannot establish her standing because it is “indirect and consequential, rather than direct and immediate.” Id. In fact, the possible injury is so theoretical and hypothetical that it hinges on the assumption, as Ms. Hook herself recognizes, that any court hearing the fee-contract dispute would apply finality principles inappropriately. The injury she alleges is too conjectural and hypothetical to have conferred standing upon her to bring the malpractice claims in the first instance, and, for the same reason, she is not aggrieved by the judgment. Ms. Hook has no standing to appeal the district court’s ruling on the malpractice claims brought by Mr. Smith.