The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has ruled that Maplewood attorney John Sogliuzzo is liable for damages for using undue influence to take $391,000 from an elderly relative.
The Third Circuit ordered the case sent back to District Court for imposition of damages against Sogliuzzo, reversing a ruling in which a district judge awarded no damages even after finding that Sogliuzzo used undue influence that prompted the woman to make a transfer of cash and bonds to him. The District Court said it would defer to a state probate court on damages because plaintiff Jane Adkins, Sogliuzzo’s sister, failed to offer sufficient evidence that a gift was made during the lifetime of Mary Grimley, a cousin of the plaintiff’s and defendant’s mother. But the finding of undue influence based on transfers made during the donor’s lifetime assumes that an inter vivos gift was made, Judges Theodore McKee, Robert Cowen and Julio Fuentes ruled Wednesday in Adkins v. Sogliuzzo.
