High-level employee is the subject of a state investigation along with the Hospital employer.  The investigation and litigation continue and eventually the hospital and the County succeed.  The employee, not so much.  Employee says that had the attorneys filed a certain appeal, he would have been exonerated.  May he sue the attorneys assigned to him, who also represented the County?

Spring v County of Monroe  2017 NY Slip Op 04645  Decided on June 9, 2017  Appellate Division, Fourth Department  says, “no.”

“Memorandum: In this action arising from plaintiff’s employment at defendant Monroe Community Hospital (MCH), plaintiff asserted three causes of action against various defendants. The first cause of action, for legal malpractice, was asserted against defendants Daniel M. DeLaus, Jr., Esq., William K. Taylor, Esq., Brett Granville, Esq., and Merideth H. Smith, Esq. (collectively, County attorneys). The second cause of action, for negligence, was asserted against MCH, the County attorneys, and defendants County of Monroe (County), and Maggie Brooks, as Monroe County Executive. The third cause of action, for defamation, was asserted against Brooks and defendant Karen Fabi. The County, MCH, Brooks, and the County attorneys (collectively, County defendants) and Fabi made separate motions to dismiss the complaint against them. The County defendants and Fabi now appeal from an order that denied the motions, and we modify the order by granting the County defendants’ motion in part and dismissing the first and second causes of action.

On these motions to dismiss, we accept the facts alleged in the complaint as true and accord plaintiff the benefit of every favorable inference (see Daley v County of Erie, 59 AD3d 1087, 1087-1088). According to plaintiff, he became employed by the County in 2001 and became the Executive Health Director/Chief Administrative Officer of MCH in 2004. In February or March 2013, “questions were raised” regarding the treatment of a patient of MCH and, in March 2013, an investigation was commenced by the New York State Department of [*2]Health (DOH) and the New York State Attorney General. The County provided plaintiff with legal representation by the County attorneys. Although plaintiff was assured that there was no conflict of interest, the County attorneys were also representing the County and other MCH staff members, whose interests were adverse to plaintiff. On March 29, 2013, the DOH issued a statement of deficiency that included accusations against plaintiff with respect to the treatment of a patient at MCH. In or around April 2013, the County hired an independent consultant to assist with a response to the statement of deficiencies and to contest DOH’s allegations by preparing and filing an “Informal Dispute Resolution” (IDR/appeal). The consultant invited plaintiff to provide her with any information, and she told plaintiff that she agreed with him that an IDR/appeal should be filed. The written IDR/appeal report was finalized on April 25, 2013 but, at the last minute, the County attorneys decided not to submit it. In plaintiff’s view, the filing of the IDR/appeal was in his best legal interests and would have protected his reputation, his license as a nursing home administrator, and his position as executive director of MCH. On May 8, 2013, plaintiff requested that he be represented by private counsel. The County defendants did not respond to that request and, on May 10, 2013, plaintiff was terminated.

We agree with the County attorneys that Supreme Court erred in denying that part of the motion of the County defendants seeking to dismiss the legal malpractice cause of action, and we therefore modify the order accordingly. It is well established that, “[t]o recover damages for legal malpractice, a plaintiff must prove, inter alia, the existence of an attorney-client relationship” (Moran v Hurst, 32 AD3d 909, 910; see Berry v Utica Natl. Ins. Group, 66 AD3d 1376, 1376; Rechberger v Scolaro, Shulman, Cohen, Fetter & Burstein, P.C., 45 AD3d 1453, 1453). In a prior appeal arising from the same incident as here, we determined that plaintiff did not have an attorney-client relationship with the County attorneys inasmuch as “[c]ounsel for the County represented [plaintiff] only in [plaintiff’s] capacity as a County employee” (Matter of Spring v County of Monroe, 141 AD3d 1151, 1152). Consequently, plaintiff is collaterally estopped from claiming here that the County attorneys represented him individually (see generally Buechel v Bain, 97 NY2d 295, 303-304, cert denied 535 US 1096). Thus, the legal malpractice cause of action must be dismissed because there was no attorney-client relationship between plaintiff and the County attorneys (see Berry, 66 AD3d at 1376; Moran, 32 AD3d at 911-912).”

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Andrew Lavoott Bluestone

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened…

Andrew Lavoott Bluestone has been an attorney for 40 years, with a career that spans criminal prosecution, civil litigation and appellate litigation. Mr. Bluestone became an Assistant District Attorney in Kings County in 1978, entered private practice in 1984 and in 1989 opened his private law office and took his first legal malpractice case.

Since 1989, Bluestone has become a leader in the New York Plaintiff’s Legal Malpractice bar, handling a wide array of plaintiff’s legal malpractice cases arising from catastrophic personal injury, contracts, patents, commercial litigation, securities, matrimonial and custody issues, medical malpractice, insurance, product liability, real estate, landlord-tenant, foreclosures and has defended attorneys in a limited number of legal malpractice cases.

Bluestone also took an academic role in field, publishing the New York Attorney Malpractice Report from 2002-2004.  He started the “New York Attorney Malpractice Blog” in 2004, where he has published more than 4500 entries.

Mr. Bluestone has written 38 scholarly peer-reviewed articles concerning legal malpractice, many in the Outside Counsel column of the New York Law Journal. He has appeared as an Expert witness in multiple legal malpractice litigations.

Mr. Bluestone is an adjunct professor of law at St. John’s University College of Law, teaching Legal Malpractice.  Mr. Bluestone has argued legal malpractice cases in the Second Circuit, in the New York State Court of Appeals, each of the four New York Appellate Divisions, in all four of  the U.S. District Courts of New York and in Supreme Courts all over the state.  He has also been admitted pro haec vice in the states of Connecticut, New Jersey and Florida and was formally admitted to the US District Court of Connecticut and to its Bankruptcy Court all for legal malpractice matters. He has been retained by U.S. Trustees in legal malpractice cases from Bankruptcy Courts, and has represented municipalities, insurance companies, hedge funds, communications companies and international manufacturing firms. Mr. Bluestone regularly lectures in CLEs on legal malpractice.

Based upon his professional experience Bluestone was named a Diplomate and was Board Certified by the American Board of Professional Liability Attorneys in 2008 in Legal Malpractice. He remains Board Certified.  He was admitted to The Best Lawyers in America from 2012-2019.  He has been featured in Who’s Who in Law since 1993.

In the last years, Mr. Bluestone has been featured for two particularly noteworthy legal malpractice cases.  The first was a settlement of an $11.9 million dollar default legal malpractice case of Yeo v. Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman which was reported in the NYLJ on August 15, 2016. Most recently, Mr. Bluestone obtained a rare plaintiff’s verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of the City of White Plains v. Joseph Maria, reported in the NYLJ on February 14, 2017. It was the sole legal malpractice jury verdict in the State of New York for 2017.

Bluestone has been at the forefront of the development of legal malpractice principles and has contributed case law decisions, writing and lecturing which have been recognized by his peers.  He is regularly mentioned in academic writing, and his past cases are often cited in current legal malpractice decisions. He is recognized for his ample writings on Judiciary Law § 487, a 850 year old statute deriving from England which relates to attorney deceit.