Sovereign Bank has responded to an attempt in federal court by Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young to avoid a malpractice finding by filing its own malpractice lawsuit in a Philadelphia trial court and asking the federal judge to toss the law firm’s declaratory judgment action.
Stradley Ronon had filed the declaratory judgment action last month in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania looking to put an “end to ongoing and baseless assertions and threats of malpractice” by Sovereign. The law firm sought a ruling that it did not commit legal malpractice when it advised Sovereign on a loan agreement with a mortgage financing company that ultimately went bankrupt. During the bankruptcy proceedings for Taylor Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Co., Sovereign found out it was not a secured creditor and ultimately settled with the mortgage company for less than the $200 million it lent the company.
