The Court then distinguished that case from LaBracio Family P’ship v. 1239 Roosevelt Ave., Inc., 340 N.J. Super. 155 (App. Div. 2001):
the two attorney/claimants in LaBracio sought contribution from a successor attorney arising from the failure of all three lawyers in the same transaction to [e]nsure that a deed and mortgage were filed timely. Cherry Hill, 182 N.J. at 76.
Held: If it is appropriate to hold successor attorneys liable under the JTCL to predecessor attorneys who each committed, though at different times, the same act of malpractice with respect to the same real estate transaction, as occurred in LaBracio, which the Supreme Court said was correctly decided, then it would follow that co-counsel should also be entitled to contribution when only one of them is sued with regard to a case both were handling at the same time.
LaBracio could be read as turning on the attorneys’ duties to each other, because, as was noted in that case, defendant Burger, the last attorney in the chain of events, told the predecessor attorneys that he was going to record the deed, and they relied on his representation to that effect. However, the Court in Cherry Hill did not focus on that aspect of LaBracio.
The issue in Cherry Hill, as framed by the Court, was not the duty of each attorney to the others, but whether they were joint tortfeasors with respect to the client. Cherry Hill distinguished LaBracio as having been correctly decided, because in LaBracio all of the attorneys had jointly caused the same injury to the client as part of the same real estate transaction.
In the Almog case, ITAS’ malpractice cause of action accrued when ITAS suffered the $8 million judgment. ITAS claims that injury was caused by Cosma’s and Connell Foley’s malpractice. Cosma and Connell Foley contend that, assuming there was any malpractice, it came about as the joint result of their actions and those of co-counsel during the Almog trial. They are claiming “common liability” with the Seyfarth attorneys “at the time of the accrual” of ITAS’ cause of action. In light of Cherry Hill and LaBracio, that claim is cognizable under the JTCL.
Although the fourth-party defendants suggest at one point that they should not be held responsible for their conduct because they were never formally admitted in New Jersey as counsel for ITAS in the Almog litigation, there is no authority for that proposition. Whether admitted here, or not, the fourth-party defendants were deeply involved in the litigation, and, according to Cosma, proposed or agreed to the strategy and tactics used in defending ITAS. If they committed malpractice, whether formally admitted in this state or not, they are responsible under the JTCL.
Affirmed in part; reversed in part; and remanded for further proceedings.
� Digested by Steven P. Bann
[The slip opinion is 23 pages long.]
For appellants � Glenn A. Bergenfield. For fourth-party defendants/ cross-appellants: Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson et al � Robert M. Vinci (Drinker, Biddle & Reath; Thomas F. Campion of counsel; Vinci and Andrew C. White on the brief); H. Neil Broder � Gloria B. Cherry (Braff, Harris & Sukonek). For respondents/fourth-party plaintiffs/cross-respondents Connell, Foley & Geiser and Thomas Cosma � James C. Orr (Wilson, Elser, Moskowitz, Edelman & Dicker; Orr and Robert A. Berns of counsel; Berns and Amy Bales on the brief).
