Marshall Dennehey Attorneys Win Dismissal of Multi-Million Dollar Claim Alleging Legal Malpractice, Fraud and Conspiracy
Jack Slimm and Jeremy Zacharias successfully attained dismissal of a multi-million dollar legal malpractice, fraud, and conspiracy case in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Monmouth County.
The action was originally filed in 2015 against an attorney and his prior law firm, arising out of a multi-million dollar land development transaction. The allegations against the attorney included legal malpractice, fraud, conspiracy to commit fraud, tortious interference, conversion of property, unjust enrichment and violation of the New Jersey RICO Statute, among other causes of action.
The 2015 case was dismissed based on the plaintiff’s failure to file the appropriate Affidavits of Merit against his attorneys and its firm. The court agreed with counsel’s argument that based on the Entire Controversy Doctrine, the Doctrine of Res Judicata and the Collateral Estoppel Doctrine, the plaintiff’s claims filed against the attorney and his firm were litigated and decided previously and that the plaintiff’s work precluded him from bringing these new claims in a separate court.
In its 2020 comprehensive opinion, the court found that the plaintiff had petitioned the court numerous times to seek the same relief in the 2015 case, applying now to a different court and filing a new lawsuit in which he alleged the same actions that were previously dismissed. The court properly dismissed the claims against the attorney and its firm, holding that these claims had already been argued before and decided by various other judges and will not be permitted to proceed before the court.
Should you have any questions regarding the defense of attorneys in legal malpractice, fraud or conspiracy claims, please contact Jack Slimm at jlslimm@mdwcg.com or Jeremy Zacharias at jjzacharias@mdwcg.com.
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