Kimmer v. Wright

Attorney Philip Wright concedes that a mistake he made in the course of representing Richard Kimmer in a workers’ compensation case was a breach of the duty he owed to his client. He thus concedes the first two elements of a legal malpractice claim existed as of the date of the mistake. However, as with many mistakes lawyers make in the course of litigation, no damage resulted from the mistake until the workers’ compensation commission denied benefits to Kimmer. At that point, the other two elements which must be present before a cause of action for legal malpractice accrues — causation and…