Scott v. Burgin

• Citation: 97 A.3d 564
• Decision Date: 14 August 2014
• Docket Number: No. 12–CV–1474.,12–CV–1474.
• Parties: Nigel L. SCOTT, et al., Appellants, v. Janice BURGIN, Appellee.
• Court: D.C. Court of Appeals

97 A.3d 564

Nigel L. SCOTT, et al., Appellants,

v.Janice BURGIN, Appellee.

No. 12–CV–1474.

District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

Argued Nov. 22, 2013.

Decided Aug. 14, 2014.

Donald M. Temple, Washington, DC, for appellants.

Kenneth H. Rosenau, with whom Kimberly K. Fahrenholz was on the brief, for appellee.

Before GLICKMAN and FISHER, Associate Judges, and STEADMAN, Senior Judge.

STEADMAN, Senior Judge:

Appellants Nigel L. Scott and the Yallery and Scott Law Firm (collectively, “Scott”) appeal from a jury malpractice award in favor of appellee Janice Burgin, who was not a client of the firm. We hold that, as a matter of law, appellants' duty of care did not extend to Burgin and, accordingly, reverse the judgment.

I. Factual Background

Kenneth Woodruff (“Woodruff” or the “decedent”) was married to, but separated from, Patricia Woodruff when he met Burgin in 1983. He proposed to her in that year and again in 1996. In 1986 Burgin moved in with Woodruff, and they carried on a long-standing close relationship. In January 2006, Burgin had a meeting with Scott in which she asked if Scott would help Woodruff obtain a divorce. Scott's brief handwritten jottings from the meeting contain the notation “(Pension?)”. Scott told Burgin that he would help Woodruff obtain a divorce if Woodruff chose to retain him. Woodruff did not attend the meeting because he was in failing health with terminal bone cancer. In her complaint, Burgin asserts: “Woodruff wished to obtain a divorce so that he may marry Plaintiff. Although he had previously designated Plaintiff as the beneficiary of his federal benefits, he was aware that Plaintiff may not receive them unless their union was made official.”

Woodruff did not meet with Scott until one year later in January 2007. Burgin escorted Woodruff to the meeting, and she filled out a divorce questionnaire on his behalf while Woodruff and Scott spoke alone. Shortly thereafter, Woodruff signed a retainer agreement for Scott's representation in his “Divorce Proceedings.” Burgin later contacted Scott on six occasions to ask whether the complaint had been served on Patricia Woodruff. Scott did not serve Patricia Woodruff with the complaint until November 2007. Woodruff died in April 2008, and a divorce was never secured prior to his death.

Woodruff had been employed by the United States Postal Service. His retirement benefits were administered by the Civil Service Retirement System. On a “Designation of Beneficiary” form dated January 15, 2007, Woodruff designated Burgin as his beneficiary for any lump-sum payout of his retirement benefits, indicating that Burgin was his “fiancée.” ¹ Woodruff also designated Burgin as his beneficiary for his Federal Employees' Group Life Insurance on a form dated December 21, 2007. After Woodruff's death, Burgin filed a claim with United States Office of Personnel Management (“OPM”) for Woodruff's “survivor benefits.” OPM denied Burgin's claim for survivor benefits on May 4, 2009, “based on evidence provided by another claimant showing that an earlier marriage between the claimant and the deceased was never terminated.”

Burgin subsequently brought this suit against Scott for legal malpractice and the related breach of contract as a third-party beneficiary. The jury awarded her damages of $249,600, the amount she assertedly would have received had she been the survivor annuity beneficiary of his pension, plus $5,000 for malpractice damages and $275 in punitive damages. At this point, Scott no longer contests that Woodruff's divorce action was handled negligently. Instead, Scott argues that Burgin lacked standing to sue for malpractice or breach of contract.

II. Legal Analysis

As an initial matter, Burgin never argued at trial, and does not argue in her brief on appeal, that she was Scott's client. To the contrary, she testified at trial that her understanding was that Woodruff alone was the client.² Therefore, if she is to prevail, she must fall within the ambit of Scott's duty of care.³

In this jurisdiction, whether a plaintiff falls into the class of persons who may sue an attorney for malpractice has been resolved as “a matter of law.” Hopkins v. Akins, 637 A.2d 424, 428 (D.C.1993) (beneficiaries of an estate may not sue attorney for estate's personal representative); Needham v. Hamilton, 459 A.2d 1060 (D.C.1983) (intended beneficiaries of estate may sue attorney who drafted the decedent's will).⁴ “It is well established that ‘the general rule is that the obligation of the attorney is to his client, and not to a third party....’ ” Needham, 459 A.2d at 1061 (quoting National Savings Bank v. Ward, 100 U.S. 195, 200, 25 L.Ed. 621 (1880)). However, “[t]he rule requiring privity is not ... without exception.” Id. at 1062. We may allow legal malpractice suits by “third parties notwithstanding a lack of privity where the impact upon the third party is ‘not an indirect or collateral consequence,’ but the ‘end and aim of the transaction.’ ” Id. (quoting Glanzer v. Shepard, 233 N.Y. 236, 135 N.E. 275, 275 (1922) (Cardozo, J.)). Otherwise put, third party claims may be sustained where the plaintiffs were “the direct and intended beneficiaries of the contracted for services.” Id.

The classic situation that meets these criteria is the failure of an attorney to properly draft a will. Comparing the case before us with that of a negligently omitted beneficiary demonstrates why we must reject Burgin's claim. “ ‘[T]he main purpose of a contract for the drafting of a will is to accomplish the future transfer of the estate of the testator to the beneficiaries named in the will....’ ” Needham, 459 A.2d at 1063 (quoting Lucas v. Hamm, 56 Cal.2d 583, 15 Cal.Rptr. 821, 364 P.2d 685, 688 (1961)). In such a situation, the duty of care runs to the intended legatee as a “direct and intended” beneficiary of the attorney-client relationship. Id. A properly drafted and executed will provides beneficiaries with legally enforceable rights upon the testator's death. A divorce decree, on the other hand, does not provide the same “direct” benefit to the fiancée of a divorcing client. The divorce does not, of its own force, redistribute the client's assets to the fiancée, nor does it affect a change in the fiancée's legal status. Rather, the “end and aim” of a divorce proceeding is the dissolution of a marriage and the distribution of marital assets. See generallyD.C.Code §§ 16–910 (assignment of property), –913 (alimony), –914 (custody of children), –920 (a decree of absolute divorce “shall become effective to dissolve the bonds of matrimony 30 days after the docketing of the decree”). The only parties directly concerned with a divorce proceeding are the married couple and their minor offspring. A fiancée of either party is a complete stranger to the transaction, legally speaking, and the divorce itself does nothing to change that status. Rather, the newly divorced person must take at least one further positive and completely distinct step to achieve what Burgin is seeking here and on which she bases her claim of damages; namely, entering into the new marriage itself.⁵

We further note that permitting malpractice suits in this situation would undermine the “the rationales supporting the requirement of privity” identified in Needham, 459 A.2d at 1062. The basic theory pursued by Burgin in this case was that Scott's failure to obtain the divorce prevented her from receiving funds the decedent intended her to have. “With little imagination (and subject only to the demands of ethical pleading),” a similar argument could be advanced by any hypothetical frustrated creditor whose debtor would be enriched but for a bungled divorce. Hopkins, 637 A.2d at 430. The fact that only Burgin had such a claim in this case cannot be “the basis” for “a principled exception to the privity requirement.” Id. at 429. Accordingly, permitting Burgin's suit in this case would frustrate one of the primary goals of the privity rule: “avoiding exposure of the attorney ‘to a liability in an indeterminate amount ... to an indeterminate class.’ ” Id. (quoting Needham, 459 A.2d at 1062). Extending permission to sue an attorney for malpractice to those who would indirectly benefit from the dissolution of a client's marriage introduces precisely this risk of unforeseen and unmanageable liability.

These concerns also demonstrate why permitting this suit would undermine the other objective of the privity rule: protecting the ability of the attorney and the client to exercise “control over the contractual agreement.” Needham, 459 A.2d at 1062. “Implicit in the concern underlying the privity concept that attorney and client be able to control ... their own agreement is an attorney's difficulty in perceiving the consequences of a duty to a third person so that these can be considered and declined if the conflicts or financial exposure is too great.” Hopkins, 637 A.2d at 429 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). In the case of beneficiaries under a will, the aims and purposes of the testator and beneficiaries are identical. In the divorce context, a number of questions and decisions may arise with respect, for example, to the settlement of disputes over property division, the payment of alimony, or...