Court Opinion

ID: 9849872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:48:24.138899+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:20:27.690205
License: Public Domain

Poff, J.,
dissenting.
I cannot join in this opinion.
In my view, the analogy the majority find in the rules concerning a tort-feasor’s right to contribution from a joint tortfeasor and the right of an indemnitee against the indemnitor is tenuous at best. The cases for which those rules are *767fashioned are wholly unlike the case at bar. Those cases concern essentially the rights and obligations of the immediate litigants; a legal malpractice case involves standards, societal values, and public policies with infinitely broader impact. In unique ways, the quality of the practice of the legal profession affects the welfare of the body politic. The relationship between a lawyer and his client is a fiduciary relationship, one which commands the highest fidelity to a most solemn trust, for the lawyer is the expert and the client is utterly dependent upon his knowledge, his skill, and his honor. Any breach of a lawyer’s fiduciary duty injures his client, demeans the integrity of the profession, and impairs public confidence in our system of justice. Lawyers are officers of the courts, subject to the supervisory powers of the courts. In the exercise of those powers, courts have a responsibility to the client, to the profession, and to the public at large to make and enforce rules which promote excellence in the practice of the law and energize the distinctive rights and obligations of the lawyer-client relationship. Those rules need not be restricted by rules made for other cases.
I am anxious about the precedential effect the rule the majority adopt may have. If the client has no cause of action until he has paid the judgment against him, then the larger the judgment, the greater the client’s burden and the lawyer’s impunity; the greater the injury wrongfully inflicted, the less the liability of the wrongdoer. The rule would seem to penalize a lawyer for his negligence when it costs his client a modest judgment but grant him immunity when his negligence results in a judgment too large for the client to pay. Furthermore, when the judgment forces the client into a state of insolvency, the rule may prejudice not only the client but his general creditors as well. Finally, the rule the majority adopt will force the client to choose whether to postpone suit against his negligent lawyer until he has paid his judgment-creditor in full or to institute a separate suit against his lawyer for each partial payment he makes. How the latter course might be affected by the doctrine of res judicata one can only wonder.
I would adopt a different rule and confine its application to legal malpractice cases such as the one at bar. The rule I favor would hold that a client’s allegation of a money judgment suffered as the proximate result of his lawyer’s negligence *768constitutes an allegation of actual damages sufficient against a demurrer.
There is little remote, speculative, or contingent about a money judgment. Indeed, it is a legal creature of singular dignity. Such a judgment calls into existence what did not exist before, viz., a liquidated debt. Except for jurisdictional defect, that judgment and the debt it creates cannot be collaterally attacked and is actionable in every state. The recorded judgment constitutes a continuing lien (securing the debt and the interest as it accrues) on the debtor’s assets (presently owned and later acquired), a lien that is enforceable by public sale. Subject to the statute of limitations, the debt survives the debtor’s death and may be revived against his personal representative. Code § 8-396 (Cum. Supp. 1976). Some judgments, such as that suffered by the client here, survive bankruptcy. 11 U.S.C. § 35.
Opposing the rule I favor, the attorney argues that it might enable a client who had won a verdict against his lawyer to enjoy a “windfall”. He reasons that the client might collect from his lawyer and, for one reason or another, fail to pay his own judgment-creditor. This argument ignores the remedies available to a judgment-creditor. Moreover, any danger of a “windfall” could be minimized by appropriate instructions on remand.
Applying the rule I favor, I would reverse the judgment, restore the motion for judgment to the docket, permit the client upon request to reinstate the several claims which, by stipulation, were withdrawn without prejudice, and grant the client an opportunity to prove the elements of the cause of action he has stated.