Garg v Wigler

[*1] Garg v Wigler 2012 NY Slip Op 50494(U) Decided on March 20, 2012 Appellate Term, First Department Published by New York State Law Reporting Bureau pursuant to Judiciary Law § 431. This opinion is uncorrected and will not be published in the printed Official Reports.

Decided on March 20, 2012
SUPREME COURT, APPELLATE TERM, FIRST DEPARTMENT
PRESENT: Hunter, Jr., J.P., Shulman, Torres, JJ
570782/11.

Rajiv Garg, Plaintiff-

against

Andrew Wigler, Esq., Defendant-Respondent.

Plaintiff appeals from an order of the Civil Court of the City of New York, New York County (Arthur F. Engoron, J.), entered June 24, 2011, which granted defendant's motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a cause of action.

Per Curiam.

Order (Arthur F. Engoron, J.), entered June 24, 2011, reversed, with $10 costs, motion denied and complaint reinstated.

Accepting plaintiff's allegations as true, and according them the benefit of every favorable inference, as we must in the context of a motion to dismiss on the pleadings (see Leon v Martinez, 84 NY2d 83, 87-88 [1994]), we find the complaint, as amplified by plaintiff's verified answers to defendant's interrogatories, sufficient to state a cause of action for legal malpractice. The record so far developed raises triable issues as to whether defendant-attorney's prior representation of plaintiff — including defendant's acknowledged failure to timely file an administrative appeal following the denial of plaintiff's claim for disability benefits — was so deficient as to compel plaintiff to settle the underlying federal lawsuit (see Jones Lang Wootten USA v LeBoeuf, Lamb, Green & MacRae, 243 AD2d 168, 175 [1998], lv dismissed 92 NY2d 962 [1998]; Whitman & Ransom v Revson, 220 AD2d 321 [1995]). "Settlement, when compelled by an attorney's breach of the standard of care, does not present an intervening cause so as to bar a malpractice action" (Jones Lang Wooton USA, at 175). We find unavailing defendant's contention that there are no issues of fact as to whether its malpractice, if any, caused plaintiff damages.

THIS CONSTITUTES THE DECISION AND ORDER OF THE COURT. [*2]
Decision Date: March 20, 2012