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Ethics/Professional Responsibility

Apr. 3, 2001

Paradise Lost

The Piscitelli case may well herald a new trend in the treatment of unrecovered punitive damages in legal-malpractice actions.

        By Alec H. Boyd
        
        It has long been established that the measure of damages in a legal-malpractice action involving an attorney's negligent failure to prevail on a meritorious claim is the value of the claim lost. Lally v. Kuster, 177 Cal. 783 (1918). As such, a legal-malpractice plaintiff is entitled to recove...

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