Gordon v. Ervin Cohen & Jessup, LLP

Summary

The California Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP and attorney Reeve Chudd in a legal malpractice action brought by beneficiaries of the Gordon Family Trust. The court held that a lawyer’s duty to nonclient beneficiaries requires clear, certain, and undisputed evidence that the client intended to benefit them in the manner alleged, and that Claire Gordon’s intent to disinherit certain grandchildren under her testamentary trust did not establish an intent to prevent them from inheriting LLC interests. The document also includes a March 20, 2023 order modifying the February 23, 2023 opinion and denying rehearing, without changing the judgment.

Holdings

1. A lawyer owes a nonclient third party a duty only when the client's intent to benefit that third party, in the manner asserted in the malpractice claim, is clear, certain, and undisputed.
2. A client's intent to disinherit a person under a testamentary trust does not, by itself, constitute clear, certain, and undisputed intent to disinherit that person from every subsequent inter vivos transaction involving property formerly held in the trust.
3. Expert testimony cannot establish the existence of a legal duty, and an expert's opinion that the lawyers breached the standard of care cannot create a duty where the duty otherwise does not exist.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the lawyers owed nonclient beneficiaries a duty to draft the LLC operating agreements to prevent Kenneth's children from obtaining LLC interests based on Claire's prior intent to disinherit them under her testamentary trust.
2. Whether the trial court properly granted summary judgment because plaintiffs could not establish the duty element of legal malpractice.
3. Whether plaintiffs' expert testimony concerning the integrated estate plan and alleged breach of the standard of care created a triable issue of material fact on duty.

Disposition

affirmed