In Muhammad v. Strassburger, 543 A.2d 1138, legal malpractice plaintiffs underlying retained law firm defendants to represent them in a medical malpractice action arising from the death of their child. The law firm negotiated a settlement that the plaintiffs orally accepted but then refused to execute the subsequent release (sound familiar). The medical malpractice trial court enforced the oral agreement to settle (which was thereafter Superior Court affirmed).

The plaintiffs then filed a legal malpractice case against the law firm, which was dismissed upon preliminary objections as barred by collateral estoppel (based on the underlying Superior Court’s decision in the medical malpractice case that the medical malpractice action was settled). The legal malpractice Superior Court reversed on the inapplicability of collateral estoppel but then the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s grant of preliminary objections on other grounds: