Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A New York appellate court held that a legal negligence claim warranted dismissal in that it failed to properly allege that the defendants’ negligence proximately caused the plaintiff actionable damages.

Venus Stinnett retained Derek Smith Law Group, PLLC, and attorney John Luke Jr. to represent her in employment discrimination and negligence actions against Delta Air Lines, Inc., and Quest Diagnostics Clinical Laboratories, Inc. The plaintiff’s claims were dismissed.

Stinnett then filed suit against Luke and the firm, alleging legal negligence. The defendants moved to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action. The trial court granted the motion.

Affirming, the appellate court noted that in a legal negligence case, a plaintiff must demonstrate that the attorney failed to exercise the ordinary reasonable skill and knowledge commonly possessed by a member of the legal profession and that the attorney’s breach of the duty proximately caused the plaintiff actual and ascertainable damages. Additionally, the court said, to establish causation, a plaintiff must show they would have prevailed in the underlying suit or would not have incurred any damages but for the attorney’s negligence. Conclusory allegations of damages based on speculation will not suffice for a malpractice suit, the court said.

The court found that the plaintiff’s legal negligence suit failed to allege that the defendants’ negligence proximately caused the plaintiff to sustain actual and ascertainable damages. The plaintiff’s allegations—that but for the defendants’ negligent representation, her claims would have been viable and she would have received a more favorable outcome—were conclusory and speculative, the court concluded. Thus, the trial court’s dismissal of the legal negligence suit had been proper.

The court also held that the plaintiff’s breach of contract claim was duplicative of her legal negligence claim in that the allegations in the contract claim were essentially identical to the malpractice claim and did not allege a distinct injury or damages. Therefore, the trial court had properly dismissed the breach of contract claim as well, the court held.

Citation: Stinnett v. Derek Smith Law Grp., PLLC, 2025 WL 2326795 (N.Y. App. Div. Aug. 13, 2025).