Court Opinion

ID: 9724395
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:55:24.698539+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:59.968112
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE CERDA, specially concurring: In paragraph 16 of plaintiffs response to the fee petition Wendy Weisman stated: “[Plaintiff] further and affirmatively states that the fees claimed by Schiller, DuCanto & Fleck are not reasonable, in light of the results obtained by them and the work that they failed to do or do adequately.” The plaintiff did not amend paragraph 16 nor did she file a counterclaim seeking damages against her former attorneys. I believe that the plaintiff only challenged the reasonableness of the amount of the attorney fees in her response. The allegation in the response was merely that in comparison with the amount of fees requested, the result and the work performed did not merit the payment of the fees requested. There was no allegation of legal malpractice contained in the response. The issues in the fee petition case were framed by the pleadings. The legal malpractice of her former attorneys was never an issue in the fee petition case. Only the reasonableness of the attorney fees was in issue. The case before us bears more similarities to Wilson v. M.G. Gulo & Associates, Inc., 294 Ill. App. 3d 897 (1998), than Bennett v. Gordon, 282 Ill. App. 3d 378 (1996). In Wilson, the wife did not allege the legal malpractice of her attorneys; she never filed a response or a counterclaim in the action. In the Wilson case, the court made a finding: “[T]he negligent representation cause of action was not raised in the petition for fees hearing.” Wilson, 294 Ill. App. 3d at 901. In contrast to Wilson, in the Bennett case the affirmative defenses contained in the answer to the fee petition included claims: Defendants conducted inadequate discovery by neglecting to obtain appraisals and accounting of Bennett’s assets; Defendants failed to obtain body attachments to force Bennett to comply with certain court orders; ' Defendants improperly permitted Bennett to transfer marital real property and failed to get an accounting of the transfer; Defendants allowed liens to attach to the improperly transferred marital property. Bennett, 282 Ill. App. 3d at 380. There were additional allegations of legal malpractice in the Bennett case. It is clear that the issues framed.by the pleadings in the Bennett fee petition case were the same issues framed by the pleadings in the malpractice case. Thus res judicata barred the plaintiff in Bennett from asserting the same issues in the malpractice case. I believe that only the reasonableness of the fees was at issue in the fee petition case sub judice. Therefore res judicata does not bar the plaintiff from asserting her legal malpractice claim. I concur that the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded to the circuit court.