Professional Liability Blog

After over a $1 million jury verdict was rendered against it in the trial court, a Texas law firm appealed arguing the evidence was legally and factually insufficient to support the jury’s award for lost opportunity to settle the underlying personal injury claim involving a trucking accident. The law firm argued its client, a trucking company defendant in the underlying personal injury suit, failed to offer any expert testimony as to the causation and damages in the legal malpractice lawsuit. Instead, the client relied solely on the lay testimony of the personal injury suit plaintiff’s attorney, the plaintiff in the personal injury suit, and its own president’s testimony about whether the underlying suit should have settled if given an opportunity and the amount of settlement. 

In Ferguson v. Aon Risk Servs. Co., the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois granted Defendants’ (collectively, “Aon”) motion for summary judgment based on Plaintiffs’ lack of standing as third-party beneficiaries and failure to file within the statute of limitations.

In Allied Design Consultants, Inc. v. Pekin Ins. Co. the Illinois Fourth District Appellate Court recently affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment finding the allegations in multiple personal injury lawsuits fell under the professional services exclusion included in the plaintiff’s insurance policy, and thus, the insurer was not required to defend the plaintiff in the lawsuit. 2024 IL App (4th) 4230738 (May 23, 2024).