Regarding the case of Daugert vs. Pappas; the Supreme Court must be informed that John Pappas and his firm were found guilty of malpractice, due to extra temporal request to review an appeal, on a case that was previously ruled in favor of his former client. His negligence conducted to his former client to assume costs, previously overruled by the Court. Main considerations for this case evaluation were the chances of the appeal reversion, as estimated by the Jury
Explanation:
Background
The attorney John Pappas was working for Mountain Development Company (MDC). Black Mountain Ranch (BMR), a commercial entity, bought a recreation complex from MDC. Several deficiencies appeared in the construction and both parties tried to resolved who should be in charge of repairing costs, without agreement.
As a solution, both proposed an agreement, with an external advisor evaluating the situation (Anvil Corporation). When Anvil concluded its investigation, indicated that all defects were caused by a faulty design made by MDC. MDC then rejected those findings, and also, refused to pay for the corrections. To this, BMR responded with a lawsuit against MDC, indicating an agreement breach.
At the end of trial, the Court assigned the blame not to MDC, but BMR, pointing that lack of maintenance resulted in degradation of the infrastructure. BMR then filed an appeal, indicating that, since there was no wrong intention proved, the agreement was biding.
MDC asked its attorney, John Pappas, to request a review to the Court; but this request was presented a day after finishing the valid period to receive the request. Considering this, the developer lost any chance of defending themselves against the appeal, and the Court failed in favor of BMR.
Summarizing, the lawsuit that initially was provided by Court in favor of MCD, was later lost because their attorney did not requested a review, in the given time.
As consequence, MCD, represented by Larry Daugert, presented a suit against Pappas, alleging malpractice.
Daugert vs. Pappas.
Pappas and his firm were accused by Daugert of breach of duty, causing MDC to lost a case that was ruled in their favor, due to an extra temporal appeal review request.
During trial, allegations were made based on the chances of dismissal of the appeal if the review request would have been accepted. Judge considered this an issue to be ruled by Jury, indicating them that:
There could be a chance that the malpractice from Pappas affected the final outcome against MDC.The chance of the Supreme Court to accept the review and reversed the appeal outcome. The percentage of avoiding damage lost by MDC due to Pappas malpractice.
Finally, the Jury calculated in 20% the changes of the Supreme Court to review and reverse the appeal, meaning that Daugert was able to prove malpractice performed by Pappas.
Main elements resulting of this trial
The main element used to rule malpractice is how close are the actions of the professional to create a negative result for its customer (proximity cause). On this case, the attorney failed to present a review in time, affecting his customer. This is the main justification provided to fail against Pappas, and used to define malpractice.
Also, considering that requesting the Jury to provide probabilities of the scenarios indicated by the Judge could have been considered out of rule, this was made in base of the client’s needs, and the legal profession. This, in order to provide a perspective of this proximity cause, for the Jury.
