Kasowitz Benson Torres has prevailed in a suit brought by a Puerto Rican real estate developer client who claimed the firm took too long to sue his former lawyers at Meister Seelig & Fein for legal malpractice.

Kasowitz sued Cesar Cabrera last year for $191,000 in unpaid bills, and Cabrera countersued for legal malpractice, arguing Kasowitz missed an opportunity to sue attorney Stephen Meister for having bungled Cabrera's original claim against another developer. While a suit against Meister was eventually filed, U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel of the Southern District of New York threw it out it in May 2018.

In a decision filed Tuesday, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice O. Peter Sherwood found in favor of Kasowitz on both sets of claims. Even assuming Kasowitz had been retained to look into possibly suing Meister, the state judge wrote, Castel's decision was already binding on the issue of malpractice.

"Defendants cannot claim that Kasowitz caused them 'to lose valuable remedies against Meister' because the court in the Meister action found that 'plaintiffs did not exercise minimal diligence to identify their injury and its source,'" Sherwood wrote.

In an underlying dispute, Cabrera, a former U.S. ambassador to Mauritius and the Seychelles, and his companies Barza Development Corp. and Zumon Corp. accused Caribbean Property Group of reneging on its promise to buy or jointly develop a tract Cabrera and his companies owned in the town of Barceloneta.

He hired Meister in 2013 to deal with CPG, but Cabrera said the lawyer failed to act, leading him to hire the Kasowitz firm in 2015. After his federal lawsuit against Meister for legal malpractice failed, Cabrera hired the firm Storch Amini to represent him in his dispute with Kasowitz, claiming malpractice against the New York firm for its conduct in the prior malpractice case against Meister.

Fee Dispute

With Cabrera's malpractice counterclaim dismissed against Kasowitz, Sherwood wrote in Tuesday's decision, there were no factual issues standing in the way of Kasowitz prevailing on its breach-of-contract claim for nonpayment of fees against Cabrera and his companies.

The judge refused to grant summary judgment on a similar account-stated claim Kasowitz brought, however, noting that Cabrera vowed that he objected to the bills and the firm didn't give Cabrera the monthly invoices it had agreed to issue. In one instance, after Kasowitz withdrew from the Meister case, the firm invoiced him for more than a year of previously unbilled legal work, according to Sherwood's opinion.

Because Kasowitz prevailed on its breach-of-contract claim, judgment was still issued in the firm's favor for legal fees. With the 9% annual interest the judge ordered, the sum Cabrera and his companies owe Kasowitz is nearly $240,000.

Steven Storch, a lawyer for Cabrera and co-founding principal of Storch Amini, said, "We respectfully disagree with the decision and we're evaluating legal options, including an appeal."

Meanwhile, Joshua Siegel, a Kasowitz partner who represented his firm, said in a statement: "We are pleased that the court confirmed that the allegations against the firm were unfounded."