Court Opinion

ID: 9755059
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-28 20:23:07.422006+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:28:02.080545
License: Public Domain

COOPER, Justice,
Concurring in Part and Dissenting in Part.
I concur in the majority opinion’s conclusion that the issue of causation in a legal malpractice action should be tested by an objective rather than a subjective standard. However, I believe ALJ Lowther’s testimony should be excluded on the basis of our existing rules of evidence and judicial conduct, thus obviating the necessity to resort to what appears to be a “public policy” decision with respect to what is essentially an evidentiary issue. Furthermore, I concur in the late Justice Leibson’s belief that a jury should not be permitted to decide in a legal malpractice action what a reasonable judge or ALJ would have done in the underlying action where the underlying action was triable only by a judge and not by a jury.
I.
In an action for malpractice, the plaintiff must prove (1) duty, (2) breach, (3) causation, and (4) damage. For purposes of the summary judgment entered in this ease, duty and breach (negligence) are conceded. The issue before us is what kind of evidence is relevant and competent to prove or disprove that the attorney’s negligence caused damage to his client. Because the proper test of causation is an objective one, ie., “What would a reasonable judge have done if presented with different evidence?”, ALJ Lowther’s subjective testimony that her award would have been the same did not address the dispositive issue, and thus was insufficient to support a summary judgment.
However, the decision to preclude her from expressing an opinion as to either what she would have done or what a reasonable judge would have done if presented with the omitted evidence implicates several existing rules of evidence. Certainly, ALJ Lowther is a competent witness under KRE 601. KRE 605 renders a judge incompetent to testify only in the case over which he/she is then presiding. Thus, the issue becomes primarily one of relevancy. “ ‘Relevant evidence’ means evidence having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to a determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” KRE 401. “All relevant evidence is admissible, except as otherwise provided by the Constitutions of the *863United States and the Commonwealth of Kentucky, by Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, by these rules, or by other rules adopted by the Supreme Court of Kentucky.” KRE 402. ALJ Lowther’s expert opinion as to what a reasonable judge would have done would be relevant and would “assist the trier of fact to understand the evidence or to determine a fact in issue.” KRE 702.
Most courts that have faced this issue, however, have held that the testimony of the judge who presided over the underlying action is excluded by rules equivalent to KRE 403 or SCR 4.300, Canon 2 of the Code of Judicial Conduct. Canon 2 provides in pertinent part:
A. A judge shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
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D_A judge shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of ... others ....
(Emphasis added.) (ALJ’s are subject to the Code of Judicial Conduct. KRS 342.230(5).)
Thus, some courts exclude the testimony of the judge who presided over the underlying action because the appearance by the judge as a witness for or against a litigant reflects adversely on the impartiality of the judiciary. “In such instance, the judge appears to be throwing the weight of his position and authority behind one of two opposing litigants.” Merritt v. Reserve Ins. Co., 34 Cal.App.3d 858, 110 Cal.Rptr. 511, 528 (Ct.App.1973). See Phillips v. Clancy, 152 Ariz. 415, 733 P.2d 300, 305-06 (Ct.App.1986); McCool v. Gehret, 657 A.2d 269, 280 (Del.1995); Cornett v. Johnson, 571 N.E.2d 572, 575 (Ind.Ct.App.1991); Ginsberg v. McIntire, 348 Md. 526, 704 A.2d 1246, 1256-57 (1998); State v. Grimes, 235 N.J.Super. 75, 561 A.2d 647, 649-50 (Ct.App.Div.1989); Herald Cos., Inc. v. Town of Geddes, 122 Misc.2d 236, 470 N.Y.S.2d 81, 83 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1983); Hirschberger v. Silverman, 80 Ohio App.3d 532, 609 N.E.2d 1301, 1306 (Ct.App.1992); Joachim v. Chambers, 815 S.W.2d 234, 238-39 (Tex.1991); In re Wilkinson, 165 Vt. 183, 678 A.2d 1257, 1259 (1996).
Other courts exclude such testimony for reasons equivalent to the KRE 403 balancing test because of the degree of prejudice to the adverse party. E.g., People v. Drake, 841 P.2d 364, 368 (Colo.Ct.App.1992); Battle v. Thornton, 646 A.2d 315, 325 (D.C.1994) (“Such testimony is likely to be particularly prejudicial in malpractice actions.”); Cornett, supra, at 575 (“The risk of prejudice to the other party would be great if the presiding judge were allowed to testify in a subsequent malpractice action.”); Hirschberger, supra, at 1306 (“[A] jury could be misled into thinking that their opinions should be given greater weight than another expert unconnected to the case.”); In re Wilkinson, supra, at 1259 (“[H]is testimony was unduly prejudicial given its elevated aura of expertise.”); Helmbrecht v. St. Paul Ins. Co., 122 Wis.2d 94, 362 N.W.2d 118, 125 (1985) (“[Tjhere was the danger that the jury would give his testimony undue weight.”) (quotation omitted).
The reasoning behind both of these approaches is sound and applicable to the instant case. Thus, I would exclude ALJ Lowther’s testimony by application of existing rules, obviating any need to decide what should be an evidentiary issue on the basis of public policy.1
*864II.
Appellees assert that if this case is remanded for trial, the trial should be before a judge sitting without a jury. I agree. In his Kentucky Law Journal article on legal malpractice, Justice Leibson argued compellingly that a jury in a legal malpractice action should be permitted to decide only issues of negligence, not causation and/or damages.
A declaratory judgment action is a non-jury trial and involves the trial court in findings of fact as well as conclusions of law.... [TJhere are sound legal reasons why certain cases are tried, and tried better, without a jury. Matters which would be decided by a judge without a jury at the prior trial, whether by findings of fact or conclusions of law, are more efficiently decided by the judge rather than the jury when legal malpractice cases are tried.
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[I]fi a case founded upon alleged improper conduct of prior litigation, the factual question that a prior jury would have decided if the defendant/attorney had conducted a proper investigation, presentation, or exclusion of evidence, or other steps bearing on a decision based on facts, is a question for the jury. But the question of what legal decision would have followed in the earlier case if the defendant/attorney had taken proper steps is a question of law for the court.
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It is unlikely that a jury could ever be adequately instructed to determine an equitable matter of this nature because the jury lacks sufficient training to function as an equity judge in the first place. The reasons the constitutional right to trial by jury in civil cases does not apply to trial of certain issues are subjects too broad to be included within the scope of this Article. Suffice it to say that the type of issues historically included within equitable jurisdiction, and now included in the expanded meaning of non-jury jurisdiction, are so different in kind, and involve so many variables in application, that jury and non-jury cases are qualitatively different.
Charles M. Leibson, Legal Malpractice Cases: Special Problems in Identifying Issues of Law and Fact and in the Use of Expert Testimony, 75 Ky. L.J. 1, 8-9, 13-14,17 (1986-87).
While a jury is competent and qualified to determine what another reasonable jury would have done if presented with evidence negligently omitted in, e.g., an ordinary tort case, a jury is both incompetent (in the legal sense) and unqualified to determine what a reasonable judge or ALJ would have done had he/she been privy to the omitted evidence. That is particularly trae where, as here, the issue involves a highly technical area of the law, specifically, the nature and quality of proof necessary to warrant an increase (or, as here, a greater increase) of a previous workers’ compensation award in response to a motion to reopen that award on the basis of a change of conditions under the statutory requirements of KRS 342.125. ALJ’s are required to have at least “five years’ experience in the Commonwealth in the practice of workers’ compensation law or a related field, and extensive knowledge of *865workers’ compensation law.” KRS 342.230(3). Simply being an experienced attorney is insufficient. Being a lay juror is far more insufficient. It is a difficult proposition for even an experienced trial judge who is unfamiliar with the technical intricacies of the Workers’ Compensation Act to predict how a “reasonable ALJ” would decide a case if presented with a particular item of additional evidence. It would be an impossible task for a jury. That is especially true if ALJ’s are precluded from testifying as expert witnesses.2
The Supreme Court of Utah held in Harline v. Barker, 912 P.2d 433 (Utah 1996), that the right to a jury trial in an action for legal malpractice depends upon whether the plaintiff was entitled to a jury trial in the underlying case.
Harline seeks to have a jury determine what only a bankruptcy judge could have determined in the first instance. We see no reason why a malpractice plaintiff should be able to bootstrap his way into having a lay jury decide the merits of the underlying “suit within a suit” when, by statute or other rule of law, only an expert judge could have made the underlying decision. It is illogical, in effect, to make a change in the law’s allocation of responsibility between judge and jury in the underlying action when that action is revisited in legal malpractice actions and thereby distort the “suit within a suit” analytic mode. To so proceed ignores and, in some cases, contradicts the public policy goals which prompted the initial assignment of decision-making authority respectively to judges and to juries on specific issues. There is no basis for abrogating those public policy goals simply because the matter arises in a legal malpractice context.
Id. at 440 (internal citation omitted). I agree. If the underlying action could only have been decided by a judge or ALJ, and if an objective test is to be applied to the issue of causation, i e., what would a reasonable judge or ALJ have decided if presented with different evidence, that decision should remain in the hands of someone with at least a modicum of knowledge of how such decisions are made.
Accordingly, I concur in the majority’s decision to exclude ALJ Lowther’s subjective testimony as to causation and to also exclude her potential expert opinion as to how a “reasonable ALJ” would have decided the case if presented with additional evidence. However, I dissent from the majority’s decision to remand this case for a trial by jury on the issues of causation and damages and would require those issues to be tried before a judge sitting without a jury.

. One might wonder how this legal-malpractice plaintiff could counter testimony by the defendant attorney that he chose not to hire an expensive "economics expert” because he knew of ALJ Lowther’s reputation for giving little or no credence to such testimony. Such evidence is entirely relevant to the issue of negligence but will naturally "leak” into the issue of causation, even if the jury is properly instructed to apply an objective rather than a subjective test to that issue.