From the 'Delaying the Inevitable Second Malpractice Suit to Sue the Third Malpractice Attorneys who Sued the First and Second Malpractice Attorneys who Sued the Trial Attorneys' Department.
The plaintiff was an owner acting as a general contractor constructing a building. The mess started in 1993 when Plaintiff purchased land. The building never got built because the subcontractors allegedly screwed up by puncturing steel pipes with nails*. The trial attorney filed 3 separate construction defect lawsuits. In the first, The trial attorney won a net verdict for $2,250,000. In the second, plaintiff won a net verdict of $400,000 in the second but was found 40% negligent. And in the third, plaintiff won a net $100 after being ordered to reimburse the defendant $100,000 in trial expenses. (The normal way for this to happen when you win at trial is when the defendant filed a pretrial offer of judgment and the verdict was below the offer of judgment's fee-shifting threshold.) A liable defendant's appeal of the first trial was resolved in 2006 in plaintiff's favor.
So plaintiff's trial attorney went 3-0. Great work, right? Nope! Malpractice time!
Plaintiff hired a first malpractice attorney and then, dissatisfied with them, a successor second malpractice attorney to sue the trial attorney. The first malpractice attorney filed 2 suits for 2 of the 3 cases, the $2,250,000 verdict and the $400,000 verdict. The first malpractice attorney did not file the third because the malpractice expert would not provide an affidavit of merit without the trial transcripts for the third trial, and nobody got the malpractice expert the trial transcripts. Plaintiff had switched to the second malpractice attorney by trial time, and the second malpractice attorney dismissed the malpractice suit for the $2,250,000 verdict just before trial, and the remaining $400,000 verdict malpractice suit went to trial in 2015, resulting in a verdict in the trial attorney's favor.
Let's put this all behind us, right? Nope! Malpractice time!
Plaintiff sued the first malpractice attorneys, second malpractice attorneys, and malpractice expert for malpractice. As a result of various motions filed, the case was dismissed in 2017--leading to this 2021 appellate opinion partially restoring the complaints. We're back in business!
But just look at these dates: 1993, 2006, 2015, 2017, 2021. At this rate, plaintiff's third malpractice suit suing plaintiff's attorney in this suit will be going strong long after I'm dead. See, Jarndyce and Jarndyce.
* This writeup includes some details found in St. Louis, LLC v. Final Touch Glass & Mirror, Inc., 386 N.J. Super. 177, 179-85 (App. Div. 2006).
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