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Weisman v. Schiller6/30/2000
Plaintiff, Wendy Weisman, has appealed the dismissal with prejudice of her complaint seeking recovery for legal malpractice. On appeal, plaintiff argues that the trial court erred in finding that her claim was barred by the doctrine of res judicata. We agree.
Plaintiff brought this action against defendant, Schiller, Ducanto & Fleck, Ltd., requesting damages allegedly incurred as a result of negligent legal representation rendered by defendant in plaintiff's dissolution action against her former husband. In her complaint, plaintiff alleged that defendant was negligent in (a) failing to fully investigate and discover the nature and extent of the parties' marital property, and (b) failing to prepare the property valuation and property division aspects of the dissolution action for trial. Plaintiff further alleged that due to the defendant's legal malpractice, she did not obtain the division of marital property that she would have obtained had the defendant not been negligent in its preparation in the dissolution action. Plaintiff's prayer for relief requested damages in excess of $30,000.
Plaintiff's allegations of professional negligence were predicated upon assertions that defendant failed to perform adequate discovery of the law practice of her former husband, a plaintiff's personal injury attorney with a multi-million dollar income. The record indicates that the defendant law firm received financial statements from plaintiff's former husband which reflected a net worth of $4,500,000, but did not place any value for the husband's law practice. However, defendant did not conduct timely discovery to obtain the documents required to determine the full extent of his finances and assets. In addition, defendant never deposed the plaintiff's former husband prior to the discovery closing date set by the trial court. Shortly after the close of discovery, plaintiff discharged defendant and hired new counsel.
In dismissing plaintiff's legal malpractice complaint, the trial court found that because plaintiff had raised defendant's negligence as an affirmative defense to a fee petition brought pursuant to ยง508 of the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act (750 ILCS 5/508 (West 1996)), the issue of defendant's negligence had already been adjudicated in the dissolution proceeding. Relying upon the decision in Bennett v. Gordon, 282 Ill. App. 3d 378, 668 N.E.2d 109 (1996), the court dismissed plaintiff's complaint with prejudice, concluding that her legal malpractice claim was barred by the doctrine of res judicata.
Under the doctrine of res judicata, a final judgment on the merits rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction acts as a bar to a subsequent suit between the parties involving the same cause of action. River Park, Inc. v. City of Highland Park, 184 Ill.2d 290, 302, 703 N.E.2d 883 (1998); Rein v. David A. Noyes & Co., 172 Ill.2d 325, 334-35, 665 N.E.2d 1199 (1996). For the doctrine to apply, the following three requirements must be satisfied: (1) there was a final judgment on the merits rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, (2) there is an identity of parties or their privies, and (3) there is an identity of causes of action. River Park, 184 Ill.2d at 302.
On appeal, plaintiff has not challenged the existence of the first two factors. We agree that the resolution of the fee petition constituted a final judgment on the merits rendered by a court of competent jurisdiction, and there is an identity of the parties. Plaintiff asserts, however, that the application of res judicata was inappropriate because the requirement that there be an identity of causes of action had not been satisfied.
A cause of action is defined
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