TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) – An attorney and a law firm didn’t commit breach of fiduciary or conversion in a complex transaction between a real estate agent and its client, a state court has ruled.
The Supreme Court of New Jersey ruled on the case on Jan. 9. Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote the opinion.
Moshe and Chanie Meisels, Monroe Estates LTD and Premier Estates NY sued Fox Rothschild LLP and its former attorney Anthony Argiropoulos over $2.4 million in funds that were wired by Moshe Meisels via another party to the law firm’s trust account for a real estate deal concerning the law firm’s client, Eliyahu Weinstein.
The wire transfers didn’t indicate the plaintiff as the owner of the funds and didn’t mention any to-dos concerning limitations or conditions. The defendant then issued the funds to its client as it was told.
Moshe Meisels alleges the defendants' client instructed the law firm to distribute the funds for other purposes instead of the real estate transaction and that he and his co-plaintiffs were defrauded. He filed suit in 2012.
After a trial court granted the defendants summary judgment on the grounds the plaintiff lacked standing to sue, an appeals court affirmed the dismissal of the fiduciary duty claim but reversed it for the conversion claim. Now, the Supreme Court has affirmed dismissal for both claims.
“We conclude that the trial court and appellate division appropriately recognized that the firm did not breach any fiduciary duty where the firm was not made aware, nor did it have any basis on which it reasonably should have been aware, of plaintiff or of a claim by plaintiff to the funds," LaVecchia wrote. "As such, there was no relationship between the firm and plaintiff on which a fiduciary duty was owed.”
For the conversion claim, LaVecchia pointed out that the firm only followed its clients instructions concerning how funds were held in the firm’s trust account. Years passed before the plaintiff demanded the funds, so too much time passed before the attorney could be informed about the issue.