Legal Reader (Jun. 22) on a new development in the saga of California’s please-abuse-me law, s. 17200: “according to California’s First District Court of Appeal, failing to include a cause of action under 17200 in many civil actions may actually constitute malpractice, even if the plaintiffs’ attorney thought it unwarranted or unjustified. The opinion was filed today in Janik v. Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff. …
“My problem is that the Court’s reasoning here applies to almost any civil lawsuit against a ‘business’ in California. As a rule, if you can state a cause of action for anything, you can also state a cause of action under section 17200, as whatever wrongs constitute the first will also constitute the second. By including section 17200 you automatically get a bunch of ‘freebies,’ such as: four year statute of limitations, the ability to recover on behalf of other non-parties, and most likely a case that is at least partially impenetrable to a petition for arbitration.
“In fact, most California civil lawsuits already include section 17200 claims, but now lawyers may be subject to malpractice claims (even from non-clients) if they file compaints that don’t.” For an analogous problem, see “Omit a peripheral defendant, get sued for legal malpractice”, Feb. 15-17, 2002. More: Declarations and Exclusions analyzed the case Jun. 24, pointing out that the ruling, while exposing the defendant attorneys to a claim of breach of duty, does not establish on the merits whether or not they did breach a duty.
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