Drago v. Buonagurio
| Decision Date | 20 December 1978 |
| Citation | 413 N.Y.S.2d 910,46 N.Y.2d 778,386 N.E.2d 821 |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
| Parties | , 386 N.E.2d 821 Eugene E. DRAGO, Respondent, v. Madeline BUONAGURIO, as Administratrix of the Estate of Francis B. Buonagurio, Deceased, Defendant, and Jerome D. Brownstein, Appellant. |
The order of the Appellate Division, 61 A.D.2d 282, 402 N.Y.S.2d 250, should be reversed, with costs, and the order of Special Term, 89 Misc.2d 171, 391 N.Y.S.2d 61, granting defendant Brownstein's motion to dismiss the complaint as against him for failure to state a cause of action reinstated.
The allegations of the complaint are described in the opinions at Special Term and in the Appellate Division. We agree with those courts, and for the reasons stated by them, that the complaint does not state a cause of action in negligence, abuse of process or malicious prosecution. Nor does it allege a cause of action for what is sometimes labeled a "prima facie tort", i. e., "the intentional malicious injury to another by otherwise lawful means without economic or social justification, but solely to harm the other" (Morrison v. National Broadcasting Co., 24 A.D.2d 284, 287, 266 N.Y.S.2d 406, 409, revd. on other grounds 19 N.Y.2d 453, 280 N.Y.S.2d 641, 227 N.E.2d 572). Whatever may be the constraints imposed by the Code of Professional Responsibility with the associated sanctions of professional discipline when baseless legal proceedings are instituted by a lawyer on behalf of a client, the courts have not recognized any liability of the lawyer to third parties therefor where the factual situations have not fallen within one of the acknowledged categories of tort or contract liability. That there are proposals before the Legislature to create new liabilities in such a circumstance (e. g., Senate Bill No. 8002 and Assembly Bill No. 10586 (1978), to amend Civil Rights Law, § 70) is an additional reason for judicial restraint in response to invitations to recognize what is conceded to be perhaps a "new, novel or nameless" cause of action. We conclude that the complaint fails to state a cognizable cause of action.
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