Johnson v. Babcock

Plaintiff appeals a judgment dismissing, on defendant’s ORCP 21 A(8) motion, plaintiffs claim for legal malpractice. The issue on appeal is whether, in a malpractice action arising from legal representation in a criminal matter, a plaintiff sufficiently pleads the required element of harm when he alleges that, as a result of his attorneys negligence, he received a legally impermissible sentence and later obtained federal habeas corpus relief from that sentence but not from the underlying convictions. Our analysis of the issue is guided by the Supreme Court’s decision in Stevens v. Bispham,…