Court Opinion

ID: 9644609
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:00:44.529388+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:15.889840
License: Public Domain

GARIBALDI, J.,
dissenting.
The majority imposes on an attorney a duty of care to a non-client broader than that imposed on an attorney under the proposed Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers § 73 (Tentative Draft No. 7,1994), under the Restatement (Second) of Torts § 552 (1977), and under our case law, including Rosenblum v. Adler, 93 N.J. 324, 461 A.2d 138 (1983). Such an extension will lead to defensive lawyering; it will make legal services more cumbersome, more costly, and less accessible to clients.
*491I agree with the proposed Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers § 78, pertaining to “duty to certain non-clients,” that provides:
For the purposes of liability ..., a lawyer owes a duty to use care ...:
(2) To a non-client when and to the extent that the lawyer or (with the lawyer’s acquiescence) the lawyer’s client invites the non-client to rely on the lawyer’s opinion or provision of other legal services, the non-client so relies, and the non-client is not, under applicable law, too remote from the lawyer to be entitled to protection.
[.Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers § 73 (Tentative Draft No. 7,1994).]
Comments b and e to section 73 disclose the limited circumstances in which an attorney’s duty to a non-client arises.
Making lawyers hable to non-clients, moreover, could tend to discourage lawyers from vigorous representation. Hence, a duty of care to non-clients arises only in the limited circumstances described in the Section and must be applied in light of those conflicting concerns.
Similarly, a lawyer representing a client in an arm’s-length business transaction does not owe a duty of care to opposing non-clients, except in the exceptional circumstances described in this Section.
[Id. at comments b, c.]
Comment e to section 73 describes the type of case in which an attorney may owe a duty to a non-client:
The lawyer’s client typically benefits from the non-client’s reliance, for example, because provision of the opinion was required in order to comply with a contractual obligation of the client, and the client cannot properly object to recognition of such a claim on the ground that it conflicts with duties the lawyer owed to the client.
Clients or lawyers may invite non-clients to rely on a lawyer’s legal opinion or services____ For example, a sales contract may provide that the seller’s lawyer will provide the buyer with an opinion letter stating that, upon investigation, the lawyer found no security interests encumbering the property being sold____ Often, a non-client will require such an opinion letter as a condition for transacting with a lawyer’s client. A lawyer’s opinion may state the results of a lawyer’s investigation and analysis of facts as well as the lawyer’s legal conclusions.
In some circumstances, reliance by many unspecified persons may be invited, as when a lawyer writes an opinion letter concerning a securities offering that is reasonably relied on by purchasers.
[Id at comment e.]
*492I agree with the majority that “[t]he purpose of the legal opinion letter is to induce reliance by others. If an attorney foresees or should foresee that reliance, the resulting duty of care can extend to non-client third parties.” Ante at 482-483, 655 A.2d at 1359. See Zendell v. Newport Oil Corp., 226 N.J.Super. 431, 544 A.2d 878 (App.Div.1988) (holding that attorneys who had assisted in organizing and presenting for sale unregistered limited partnerships are liable to plaintiffs who invested in the unsuccessful partnerships); Greycas, Inc. v. Proud, 826 F.2d 1560 (7th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1043, 108 S.Ct. 775, 98 L.Ed.2d 862 (1988) (finding that attorney who prepared opinion letter stating that borrower’s collateral was not subject to prior liens owed Greycas, the creditor who relied on that opinion letter, a duty not to misrepresent negligently the status of borrower’s collateral); Horizon Financial, F.A. v. Hansen, 791 F.Supp. 1561, 1573-75 (N.D.Ga.1992) (concluding that, under Pennsylvania law, attorney for borrower has duty to lender bank to whom attorney issued opinion letters expressly for bank’s benefit); Mehaffy, Rider, Windholz & Wilson v. Central Bank Denver, N.A., 892 P.2d 230 (1995) (holding that “by issuing legal opinion letters for the purpose of inducing [reliance], the attorneys may be liable ... for negligent misrepresentation”); Prudential Insurance Co. of America v. Dewey, Ballantine, Bushby, Palmer & Wood, 80 N.Y.2d 377, 590 N.Y.S.2d 831, 605 N.E.2d 318 (1992) (holding borrower’s attorney liable to lender for negligently preparing opinion letter that was provided to lender as condition to debt restructuring). See also cases cited by majority, ante at 483, 655 A.2d at 1359.
An attorney who undertakes a specific task for a non-client who the attorney knows will rely on that specific task also owes a duty of care to that non-client. As Comment e to section 73 of the proposed Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, supra, states:
When a non-client is invited to rely on a lawyer’s services, rather than on the lawyer’s opinions, the analysis is similar. For example, if the seller’s lawyer at a real-estate closing offers to record the deed for the buyer, the lawyer is subject to *493liability to the buyer for negligence in doing so, even if the buyer did not thereby become a client of the lawyer and the lawyer, for example, owes the buyer no duty of confidentiality.
[Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers § 73, supra, comment e.]
Our courts have already recognized this sort of duty to non-clients. See R.J. Longo Construction Co. v. Schragger, 218 N.J.Super. 206, 527 A.2d 480 (App.Div.1987) (holding that township attorneys who had failed to obtain certain easements mentioned in sewer-construction contract’s bid package, and who had thus forced the contractor to stop construction and suffer losses, were liable for foreseeable consequences of their negligent misrepresentations on which contractor had reasonably and foreseeably relied); Stewart v. Sbarro, 142 N.J.Super. 581, 362 A.2d 581 (App.Div.1976), certif. denied, 72 N.J. 459, 371 A.2d 63 (1976) (holding that buyers’ attorney who agreed to obtain buyers’ signatures on a bond and mortgage indemnifying sellers against liability for existing corporate debt, but who failed to obtain those required signatures, was hable in negligence for breaching a duty to sellers).
Like the majority, I rely on Rosenblum, supra, 93 N.J. at 324, 461 A.2d 138. In Rosenblwm, we applied section 552 of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, supra, which limits liability for negligent misrepresentation to “the person or one of a limited group of persons for whose benefit and guidance” information is supplied. Id. at 338, 461 A.2d 138. Those limitations were imposed so that accountants would not be subject to unlimited liabilities.
Yet this case is easily distinguishable from any of the previously cited eases, supra at 491-492, 655 A.2d at 1364, and clearly is distinguishable from the standards set forth in section 73 of the proposed Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, supra. This case does not concern a lawyer’s legal opinion or the performance of any legal services. Nor does this case concern a non-client for whom an attorney has undertaken a specific legal task. Rather, this case is about an attorney’s error in not continuing to follow the whereabouts of a report of a consulting engineering company that was incorrectly collated in his office and sent to the *494real estate agent of his then-client, but that ended up in the hands of a subsequent non-client, from a subsequent seller of the same property.
II
A brief recitation of the facts demonstrates what an overbroad, virtually unlimited duty of care for remote non-clients the Court has imposed on attorneys. Herrigel was the lawyer for Rohrer Construction (Rohrer). Rohrer wanted to sell the property at issue. While representing Rohrer, Herrigel sent a report of Heritage Consulting Engineers (Heritage) to Rohrer’s then-real estate aggnt William G. Bachenberg, Jr. (Bachenberg). That report had been erroneously collated in Herrigel’s office. Rohrer failed to sell the property. Bachenberg later purchased the property at a sheriffs sale; Bachenberg then decided to sell the property. At his first meeting with Lisa Petrillo (Petrillo), Bachenberg gave the miscompiled report to Petrillo. This was done solely by Bachenberg. As the trial court stated when it held that Herrigel had no duty to Petrillo, “He had no knowledge of what Mr. Bachenberg gave, if anything, to Miss Petrillo.”
Thus Rohrer was the client whom Herrigel was representing when he purportedly gave the two-page report to Bachenberg, Rohrer’s realtor. Petrillo was never Rohrer’s prospective buyer; she was solely Bachenberg’s prospective buyer. By the time Petrillo expressed interest in the property, Bachenberg was no longer the realtor but the seller.
Under section 73 of the proposed Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, supra, Herrigel has no duty to Petrillo. Herrigel did not give Petrillo a “legal opinion” or provide “other legal services” to her. Indeed, the negligence charged to Herrigel is not related to either his legal opinion or other legal services.
Nor is Herrigel liable under Rosenblum. In that case we held that for the third-party investors to recover from an accountant, the investors
*495would have to establish that they received the audited statements from the company pursuant to a proper company purpose, that they, in accordance with that purpose, relied on the statements and that the misstatements therein were due to the auditor’s negligence and were a proximate cause of the [investor’s] damage.
[93 N.J. at 350, 461 A.2d 138 (citations omitted).]
Applying Rosenblum, Petrillo would have had to receive the information from and for the benefit of Rohrer. Petrillo had no connection with Rohrer. She did not receive the report from Rohrer, nor was her reliance in furtherance of Rohrer’s business purposes. It was an unforeseeable turn of events that accounted for her receipt of the report from Rohrer’s former realtor, Bachenberg. While Baehenberg was the party to whom the two-page report was originally given, it was given to Baehenberg in Bachenberg’s capacity as realtor for Rohrer, Herrigel’s client. When Herrigel gave Baehenberg the report, it was to assist Baehenberg in the sale of the property on behalf of Rohrer; it was unforeseeable at that time that Baehenberg would later purchase the property and give the two-page report to his own prospective client.
As Rosenblum makes clear, a remote party is not entitled to recover from an attorney who could not have foreseen the harm to the non-client. Even if Petrillo had relied on the report, her reliance in that later transaction with a different owner makes her too remote for Herrigel to have foreseen harm to her. Foreseeability of harm to a non-client is one of the factors the Stewart court considered in balancing an attorney’s liability to a non-client; the other factors are
the extent to which the transaction was intended to affect the plaintiff, the foreseeability of harm to him, the degree of certainty that the plaintiff suffered injury, the closeness of the connection between the defendant’s conduct and the injury suffered, the moral blame attached to the defendant’s conduct, and the policy of preventing future harm.
[Stewart v. Sbarro, supra, 142 N.J.Super. at 593, 362 A.2d 581 (quoting Donald v. Garry, 19 Cal.App.3d 769, 771-72, 97 Cal.Rptr. 191, 192 (1971) (quotations omitted)).]
Nor is Herrigel liable under Stewart. Herrigel had no duty to Petrillo. There was no intent to affect Petrillo. She was not a party to the transaction for which Herrigel sent the report to *496Bachenberg. She was not a purchaser from Rohrer. Moreover, Petrillo suffered no injury as a result of Herrigel’s action. Post at 497-498, 655 A.2d at 1366-1367.
Nor was there the requisite closeness of connection between Herrigel’s conduct and Petrillo’s alleged injury. Certainly no moral blame attaches to the erroneous collating of a report by an attorney or someone in his office. Petrillo is not claiming that Herrigel committed an act of fraud. I agree with the Appellate Division “that any claimed misconduct by Herrigel was far too ambiguous or speculative to rise to the level of dishonesty contemplated by the foregoing Rules of Professional Conduct.” 263 N.J.Super. 472, 483, 623 A.2d 272 (1993) (referring to RPC 4.1 (“Truthfulness in Statements to Others”) and RPC 8.4 (“Misconduct”)).
Nor do I think that the majority’s policy decision will prevent future harm. Under the majority’s opinion, an attorney may owe a professional duty to non-clients to oversee the care used in collating pages from their law office files. While an attorney should not be exempt from the need to exercise the same ordinary care that others do with respect to non-professional functions such as this, there should be no special duty arising from the fact that the source of this information is an attorney. For example, it is not uncommon for an attorney in a real estate transaction to ask a former attorney for a survey or title report to avoid the cost of securing new documents. Under the majority’s opinion, if the attorney or any other member of the attorney’s staff, due to careless law office management, sends an incomplete survey, the attorney may be liable to a third party for damages resulting from reliance on the mis-collated survey. Although attorneys may be liable to non-clients for their own professional work, they are not and should not be guarantors of the accuracy of surveys or other similar experts’ reports that they merely transmit.
Ill
Furthermore, for a non-client to recover for negligent misrepresentation, the non-client must establish that she or he relied on *497the negligent conduct of the attorney to her or his detriment. Petrillo consistently testified that she never intended to rely on Heritage’s two-page report, that she did not rely on the two-page report, that she included in the contract of sale a provision allowing her an additional forty-five days in which to get her own percolation tests, and that she hired an engineering firm to perform percolation tests for her. Even in the context of Petrillo’s motion for summary judgment, there is no evidence that Petrillo relied on the truncated report.
Nor did Petrillo rely on Herrigel for legal representation. Petrillo testified that she did not intend at anytime to rely on Herrigel to provide legal representation to her, that she never hired Herrigel for any purpose, that Herrigel never directly gave her any information relating to the transaction, that she never requested her attorney to make any inquiry of Herrigel relating to the percolation tests, and that Herrigel had not failed or refused to answer any question relating to this matter that was put to him. She testified that Herrigel did not directly provide her with any information upon which she relied in deciding to terminate the contract. She testified that her decision to terminate the contract was based solely on information imparted to her by her experts and was not based in any way on information given to her by Herrigel:
Q: The decision to terminate, your decision to terminate the contract was solely based open [sic] information imparted to you by your experts, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: And it was not based in any way on information given to you by Mr. Herrigel?
A: Yes. Right.
IV
Herrigel owed no duty of care to Petrillo. She did not rely on his legal opinion. He did not provide her with other legal services nor did he undertake to perform any specific tasks for her. The attenuated chain of events that led to Petrillo having the report makes her too remote from Herrigel for him to have foreseen *498harm to her. Moreover, as the record demonstrates, Petrillo did not rely on the report. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.
For affirmance — Chief Justice WILENTZ, and Justices HANDLER, POLLOCK, O’HERN and STEIN — 5.
Concurring — Justice STEIN — 1.
For reversal — Justice GARIBALDI — 1.