Mireskandari v. Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP (April 8, 2022, B301785)
Plaintiff’s former attorneys did not advise him of the risk that his lawsuit against a newspaper could be subject to an anti-SLAPP motion. The newspaper prevailed on its anti-SLAPP motion and the trial court struck plaintiff’s state law claims, causing plaintiff to incur substantial litigation expenses. In plaintiff’s subsequent action against his attorneys for professional negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty, the trial court granted summary adjudication of plaintiff’s professional negligence claim because he could not prove he would have prevailed in the underlying lawsuit against the newspaper but for the attorneys’ negligence. A jury decided the remaining claims and awarded plaintiff no damages, and the plaintiff appealed.
The Court of Appeal reversed. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Viner v. Sweet (2003) 30 Cal.4th 1232, the court held that when an attorney breaches a duty of care by failing to advise a client of reasonably foreseeable litigation risks, the client need only show that but for the attorney’s negligence, they would have obtained a more favorable result, not that they necessarily would have prevailed in the underlying litigation.
Here, the court held plaintiff satisfied this standard by alleging that he would not have filed the underlying case in California, and thus would have avoided significant litigation expenses and attorney fee sanctions, had he known about the risk that his complaint would be subject to an anti-SLAPP motion.
