The Minnesota Supreme Court recently expanded liability for attorney malpractice. Specifically, the court clarified when multiple acts by the same lawyer may give rise to separate claims for legal malpractice. A single mistake, as it turns out, can have long-reaching ramifications for practitioners.
In Frederick v. Wallerich, published on February 7, 2018, Frederick’s attorney prepared a prenuptial agreement for Frederick in 2006. But the prenuptial agreement did not include signatures from two witnesses and so it was legally invalid. One year later, the attorney drafted a will for Frederick. The will did not leave any assets for Frederick’s spouse, stating that the prenuptial agreement already specified what assets she was entitled to receive upon Frederick’s death. When Frederick consulted with his attorney to prepare the will, the attorney told him that the prenuptial agreement was enforceable.
In 2013, Frederick’s spouse filed for divorce and Frederick discovered that his prenuptial agreement was meaningless. Later that year, Frederick sued his estate attorney for malpractice. More than six years had passed since the execution of the prenuptial agreement, clearly placing claims relating to the drafting process outside of the applicable statute of limitations. But Frederick’s will was drafted within the statute of limitations. According to Frederick, the visits with his attorney to draft his will gave rise to a new cause of action for legal malpractice. In particular, Frederick argued that by failing to inform him of the invalidity of his prenuptial agreement, his attorney committed an independent act of malpractice. Although the trial court and the court of appeals disagreed, the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed and remanded.
Writing for the majority, Justice Hudson reasoned that Frederick’s position was “significantly worsened” by the failure to advise him of the invalidity of his prenuptial agreement later on. Frederick allegedly faced an additional six years of appreciation of his assets (to the tune of about a million dollars) which he could have avoided by divorcing his spouse or entering into a postnuptial agreement. The type of negligent conduct differed: failing to advise Frederick on the invalidity of his prenuptial agreement “spanned multiple areas of law” and “multiple legal projects.” And, of course, the attorney’s actions took place at different times and during different transactions. Last, although the attorney’s original mistake was the root cause of the second error, it did not prevent the attorney from meeting her duty of care with regard to the later transaction. Thus, the majority concluded that the will drafting was an independent act of negligence.
Suing the Lawyers Gets Easier
