An insurance defense bar beset by pressure to handle more cases at lower rates has a new reason to fear carriers as clients.
In a rare case of defense lawyer malpractice, a jury in Camden County awarded $362,000 Thursday to an insurance company that didn't like the performance of its outside counsel at a personal injury trial.
The jury voted, 6-1, that a New Jersey partner in Philadelphia's 165-lawyer Post & Schell caused Safestep Reinsurance Inc. a loss in the 1997 defense of a worker's claim that he fell from a defective ladder.
Carriers rarely sue. In fact, it was the first time Safestep did in 2,500 cases over its 29-year history, says claims executive Paul Junius.
The case also is unusual because there aren't many malpractice cases stemming from a jury verdict in the underlying case. The typical malpractice verdict arising from litigation is against a plaintiffs lawyer whose negligence -- such as blowing a statute of limitations or failing to get an affidavit of merit -- leads to dismissal of a winnable case.
The Camden verdict, along with an American Bar Association study, suggest such cases are becoming less rare. The ABA's Standing Committee on Lawyers' Professional Liability last year compared malpractice claims from 1995-1999 and 2000-2003 and found that claims against personal injury defense lawyers nearly doubled to 2,953 from 1,512.