A judge has barred defendants in a legal malpractice action from renewing a dismissal motion despite a recent ruling that appeared to narrow their liability exposure. With his kidnapping conviction vacated after some 15 years in prison, Giuseppe D'Alessandro filed a $26 million suit against his former appellate lawyers, including John Carro, a former Appellate Division, First Department, judge. Carro and the other defendants, including his firm, Carro, Carro & Mitchell, responded with a motion seeking to toss the suit, or at least dismiss nonpecuniary damage claims on the grounds that such claims were not properly recoverable in a legal malpractice suit.
In February 2012, then-Supreme Court Justice Emily Jane Goodman denied the dismissal motion in its entirety, noting a split in appellate views on whether nonpecuniary damages were recoverable in criminal legal malpractice cases (NYLJ, March 12, 2012). The defendants then filed a notice of appeal, a few months before the state Court of Appeals ruled in a separate case, Dombrowski v. Bulson, 79 AD3d 1587, that nonpecuniary damages were not available for legal malpractice in criminal cases (NYLJ, June 1, 2012).
