Chicago Insurance Company v. Paulson & Nace, PLLC

WILKINS, Circuit Judge:

A law firm was engaged to bring a medical malpractice action on behalf of a young woman who had become paralyzed after surgery. Roughly a year and a half after the engagement, the firm filed two complaints in Virginia state court, each of which was dismissed: the first without prejudice for failure to correctly caption a pleading; the second with prejudice for filing outside the statute of limitations. Shortly thereafter, the law firm applied for and obtained a new professional liability insurance policy. A few years later, the aggrieved client sued the law firm for…