Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

At issue in this case is whether ORS 12.115(1) applied to actions in which plaintiffs allege their attorney negligently caused injury consisting solely of financial loss—here, the cost to plaintiffs of attempting to defend themselves against a claim for unpaid federal taxes and the anticipated cost of paying that tax liability. To this, the Oregon Supreme Court concluded the legislature intended the phrase “negligent injury to person or property” in ORS 12.115(1) to include negligence claims seeking to recover for the kind of injury to economic interests that plaintiffs have alleged. View "Marshall v. PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP" on Justia Law

In 2012, Escamilla, a fugitive recovery agent, searched the plaintiffs' residence, looking for their relative, who had skipped bail. In 2014, the plaintiffs sued Escamilla based on the incident, asserting negligence, false imprisonment, assault, and battery. Attorney Vannucci represented the plaintiffs. In 2017, Escamilla filed a cross-complaint asserting abuse of process against the plaintiffs for instituting civil harassment proceedings resulting in a temporary restraining order. In 2019, the jury ruled in favor of Escamilla.Approximately 23 months later, Escamilla filed a malicious prosecution complaint against the plaintiffs and Vannucci. Vannucci filed an anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation (Code Civ. Proc. 425.18)) motion, claiming the malicious prosecution claim arose out of his representation of the plaintiffs, a protected activity. and that Escamilla would not be able to prove a probability of prevailing because his malicious prosecution claim was barred by the one-year limitations period, Civil Code 340.6(a). Escamilla argued that his malicious prosecution claim was governed by section 335.1's two-year statute of limitations. The court of appeal affirmed, in favor of Vannucci. Section 340.6(a) governs “[a]n action against an attorney for a wrongful act or omission, other than for actual fraud, arising in the performance of professional services.” It applies to malicious prosecution claims against attorneys who performed professional services in the underlying litigation. The tolling provision is inapplicable. View "Escamilla v. Vannucci" on Justia Law

Complainant, a pro se litigant, has filed a complaint of judicial misconduct against a district judge. Review of this complaint is governed by the Rules for Judicial-Conduct and Judicial-Disability Proceedings (“Judicial-Conduct Rules”), the federal statutes addressing judicial conduct and disability, and relevant prior decisions of the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council.   The Ninth Circuit dismissed the complaint. The court held that complainant provided no objectively verifiable evidence of misconduct in this matter. The court held that a review of the record reveals that the disciplinary proceedings were conducted pursuant to the local rules of the district court, and the district judge explained that the district court did not have appellate jurisdiction over the State Bar’s decisions. View "IN RE COMPLAINT OF JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT" on Justia Law

The LSBA is a mandatory bar association. Attorneys are required to join and pay fees to the organization as a condition of practicing law in the state. Plaintiff has been a member in good standing of the LSBA since 1996. Upset that he was forced to associate with and contribute to certain causes, Plaintiff sued the LSBA, the Louisiana Supreme Court, and its justices (collectively, “the LSBA”) in 2019. He claimed that compulsory membership in the LSBA violated his rights to free speech and association. Defendants moved to dismiss, and the district court granted the motion. Plaintiff appealed.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the judgment in part and reversed it in part. The court remanded to the district court for a determination of the proper remedy. The court explained that although it takes no position on the proper injunctive or declaratory relief. The court also rendered a preliminary injunction preventing the LSBA from requiring Plaintiff to join or pay dues to the LSBA pending completion of the remedies phase. The court wrote that because the LSBA engages in non-germane speech, its mandatory membership policy violates Plaintiff’s rights to free speech and free association. Additionally, Plaintiff is entitled to a limited preliminary injunction for the same reasons as the plaintiffs in McDonald. View "Boudreaux v. LA State Bar Assoc" on Justia Law

In 2011, PersonalWeb sued Amazon in Texas, alleging that Amazon’s S3 technology infringed PersonalWeb’s “True Name” patents. After the court construed the claim terms, PersonalWeb stipulated to dismissal. In 2018, PersonalWeb asserted the same patents against 85 Amazon customers for their use of Amazon S3. Amazon intervened and filed a declaratory judgment action. The customer cases and Amazon’s declaratory judgment action were consolidated. PersonalWeb represented that if it lost its “Twitch” customer case, it could not prevail in the other customer cases. The court stayed the other cases; the Twitch case and Amazon’s declaratory judgment action proceeded. PersonalWeb counterclaimed against Amazon, alleging that Amazon S3 infringed its True Name patents and accused another Amazon product, CloudFront, of infringement.The Federal Circuit affirmed partial summary judgment of non-infringement of the S3 product, based on claim preclusion and summary judgment of non-infringement as to CloudFront because, under the earlier claim construction, PersonalWeb admittedly could not prove infringement. The district court granted Amazon and Twitch attorneys’ fees and costs, 35 U.S.C. 285, determining that the case was exceptional because PersonalWeb’s claims related to Amazon S3 were objectively baseless in light of the Texas Action; PersonalWeb frequently changed positions; PersonalWeb unnecessarily prolonged litigation after claim construction foreclosed its infringement theories; PersonalWeb’s positions regarding the customer cases were unreasonable; and PersonalWeb submitted declarations that it should have known were not accurate. The Federal Circuit affirmed an award of $5,401,625.06, including $5,187,203.99 in attorneys’ fees. View "In re PersonalWeb Techs., LLC" on Justia Law

Hackers infiltrated Wawa’s payment systems and obtained the credit and bank card data of about 22,000,000 customers. Wawa announced the breach on December 19, 2019; by the next day, attorneys had identified plaintiffs and filed the first of many class action suits seeking damages for the disclosures. Nine months later, Wawa and class counsel for the consumer-plaintiffs agreed on a settlement making $9 million in gift cards and some other compensation available to customers (of which $2.9 million was claimed) and giving $3.2 million to class counsel for fees and expenses. Objections arrived.The Third Circuit vacated the fee award. The district court must consider whether the funds made available to class members rather than the amount actually claimed during the claims process is the best measure of reasonableness and whether the fee award is reasonable in light of a “clear sailing provision,” in which Wawa promised as part of the settlement not to challenge class counsel’s request for an agreed-upon attorney’s fee award. Though not an automatic bar to settlement approval, such terms deserve careful scrutiny when calculating a reasonable fee award. The court also noted a “puzzling” fee reversion, providing that any court-ordered reduction in the attorney’s fee award would be returned to Wawa—not the class. View "In re: Wawa, Inc. Data Security Litigation" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court approved the conditional agreement of the parties in this attorney discipline case involving Respondent Theodore Rokita, the Attorney General of Indiana and their proposed discipline of a public reprimand, concluding that, for Respondent's professional misconduct, a public reprimand was appropriate.At issue was Respondent's appearance on a national television program on July 13, 2022 to discuss an Indiana physician who had performed an abortion on a ten-year-old rape victim from Ohio and his description of the physician as an "abortion activist acting as a doctor - with a history of failing to report." The Supreme Court found that Respondent violated Indiana Professional Conduct Rules 3.6(a) and 4.4(a) by making this statement and that, for Respondent's professional misconduct, a public reprimand was appropriate. View "In re Rokita" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court dismissed Relator Mark Repp's quo warranto claim he sought to oust Rhonda Best from judicial office and to declare him the rightful holder of the office and dismissed all other claims sua sponte, holding that Repp was not entitled to relief.In 2019, Repp was elected to a six-year term as judge of a municipal court. Less than two years into his term, the Supreme Court found that Repp had engaged in professional misconduct and suspended him for one year from the practice of law. Because Repp failed to perform his official duties for more than six months, the judicial office he held was declared vacant, and Governor Mike DeWine appointed Best to fill the vacancy. After Repp was reinstated to the practice of law he filed this original action seeking a writ of quo warranto to oust Best from officer and also sought a writ of prohibition, declaratory judgment, and injunctive relief. The Supreme Court denied all forms of relief, holding (1) if a judge is absent from his official duties for at least six months, the appropriate legislative authority is allow to declare the judicial office vacant under Ohio Rev. Code 1901.10(B); and (2) Repp's remaining requests either failed to state a claim, or this Court lacked jurisdiction over his claims. View "State ex rel. Repp v. Best" on Justia Law

Pfister and Evans dealt methamphetamine in Illinois. In 2016, they traveled to Colorado approximately 20 times to buy meth from Wright. After Evans sold several ounces to Heavener, officers searched Heavener’s home and recovered over 50 grams of meth. Heavener knew that Evans got the meth from “Monica” in Colorado.Wright was charged with intent to distribute at least 50 grams of meth and at least 500 grams of a mixture containing meth. She retained Garfinkel. In its opening statement, the government previewed testimony from Evans, Pfister, Heavener, and Deherrera, a Colorado-based middleman. Garfinkle also foreshadowed testimony from Deherrera, referring to him as the government’s witness. During trial, the government alerted the court that Deherrera had stated that Garfinkel had encouraged him to change his testimony. The government referenced Deherrera’s potentially exculpatory testimony but stated that it no longer planned to call him as a witness, noting that if Wright called Deherrera and he testified to being pressured to change his testimony, Garfinkel would have to take the stand to impeach him. Garfinkel denied Deherrera’s allegations. The court questioned Wright, who confirmed she agreed with Garfinkel’s strategy to not call Deherrera, understanding the possibility that Garfinkel was personally motivated. Deherrera did not testify. In closing arguments, Garfinkel described Deherrera’s absence as the missing link—a burden the government had to overcome to convict Wright. Wright was convicted and sentenced to 264 months. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding no conflict of interest and sufficient evidence of conspiracy. View "United States v. Wright" on Justia Law

Two law firms that represented Plaintiffs in this litigation, Schlichter Bogard & Denton LLP (“SBD”) and Schneider Wallace Cottrell Konecky LLP (“SWCK”), appealed the district court’s order imposing sanctions against them under 28 U.S.C. § 1927. Plaintiffs’ counsel represented individual shareholders and an employee retirement plan in a lawsuit claiming that the investment company, investment adviser, and recordkeeper (collectively “Empower”) servicing their mutual funds charged excessive fees in violation of its fiduciary duties under § 36(b) of the Investment Company Act. Following denial of Empower’s summary judgment and Daubert motions, the case proceeded to a bench trial where the district court ruled in favor of Empower. Thereafter, the court sanctioned Plaintiffs’ counsel for “recklessly pursu[ing] their claims through trial despite the fact that they were lacking in merit” and held SWCK and SBD jointly and severally liable for $1.5 million in Empower’s trial costs, expenses, and attorneys’ fees. After review, the Tenth Circuit concluded the district court abused its discretion and therefore reversed the order imposing sanctions. Accordingly, the Court did not reach the issues of SWCK and SBD’s joint and several liability or the court’s denial of SWCK’s motion to amend the judgment. View "Obeslo, et al. v. Empower Capital, et al." on Justia Law