NEW ORLEANS (Legal Newsline) - A New Orleans man who lost a $600,000 judgment to his former partner in a venture to renovate houses after Hurricane Katrina also lost his chance to win money from his lawyers after an appeals court tossed his legal malpractice lawsuit over a missed deadline.
Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal, in a Dec. 8 decision, upheld the dismissal of Robert Schiff’s lawsuit against attorney Frederick T. Haas III and the law firm Pugh, Accardo, Haas, Radecker & Carey, saying Schiff filed his appeal more than seven business days after a trial judge ruled against him.
Schiff sued his lawyers for malpractice after losing a $685,000 judgment to Lidia Pollard, with whom he entered a partnership in 2007 to buy and renovate houses in New Orleans after the hurricane. Schiff agreed to finance the renovations and the two would split the profits. The partnership broke down and Pollard sued Schiff, accusing him of failing to reimburse expenses or share profits. Pollard won in a bench trial that the Fourth Circuit ultimately upheld.
Schiff then turned to his lawyers, suing Haas and his firm in 2014, blaming them for the judgment against him. Schiff’s expert, Dane Ciolino, identified specific examples of negligence including failing to raise the question of whether Pollard was a licensed contractor as required under the contract. Ciolino didn’t testify as to causation, however, and the lawyers called their own expert, attorney Wayne Lee, who said Schiff would have lost either way.
The trial judge granted summary judgment to the defendants, finding Schiff failed to provide enough evidence to prove the lawyers caused his courtroom defeat. Specifically, the judge said Schiff failed to attach the proper pages from a lawyer’s deposition to support his arguments.
The summary judgment was issued Nov. 25, 2020, but Schiff didn’t file a motion for new trial until Dec. 11, more than the seven days allowed. He didn’t file his appeal until March 9, 2021, more than the 60-day deadline for filing appeals.
The Fourth Circuit ordered him to show cause why his appeal shouldn’t be dismissed. Schiff said he didn’t get the notice of judgment until Dec. 9 and the clerk failed to note on the form when it had been mailed. The appeals court rejected that argument, saying the trial judge granted the motion for summary judgment on Nov. 6, signed the judgment on Nov. 25 and a law clerk signed a notice “that indicates the mailing date as Nov. 25.”
“Mr. Schiff acknowledges that the notice was mailed and received, and he presents no evidence that the notice was not mailed by the clerk of court,” the appeals court said.
Judge Rose Ledet dissented, saying her court should have accepted Schiff’s appeal because there was reasonable doubt about when the notice of judgment was mailed. She also said despite Schiff’s failure to attach the proper deposition pages to his memorandum opposing summary judgment, he presented sufficient evidence that his lawyers failed to explore the possibility Pollard was an unlicensed contract and thus ineligible to receive payment under her contract with Schiff.