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Insurance Company of the West v. Haight Brown & Bonesteel LLP11/22/2002
most effective safeguard yet devised against speculative and conjectural claims in this era of ever expanding litigation. It is a standard of proof designed to limit damages to those actually caused by a professional's malfeasance." (Mattco Forge, Inc. v. Arthur Young & Co., supra 52 Cal.App.4th at p. 834.)
A party cannot ignore the merits of the underlying claim and defeat a motion for summary judgment by claiming lost settlement value as the sole measure of damages. Malpractice claims require a plaintiff to demonstrate that proper handling of the underlying case would have resulted in a favorable judgment. This requirement cannot be sidestepped by asserting that a case might have settled in postjudgment negotiations while a non-meritorious appeal was pending. While lost settlement value might, in appropriate cases, be considered part of the measure of damages (e.g., Laird v. Blacker, supra, 2 Cal.4th at p. 615), it cannot stand alone and make viable an otherwise untenable malpractice claim.
The measure of damages in a malpractice case is the value of the lost claim. (Granquist v. Sandberg (1990) 219 Cal.App.3d 181, 187.) "`If the injury occurred because of negligence in handling litigation, the measure of direct damage is the difference between the amount of the actual judgment obtained and the judgment which should have been recovered.'" (Ibid.) If the plaintiff was not damaged by the defendant's actions in the underlying lawsuit, lost settlement value will not substitute as a measure of damages; a claim for malpractice cannot succeed without demonstrating that proper management of the underlying lawsuit would have resulted in a favorable judgment. (See Hinshaw, Winkler, Draa, Marsh & Still v. Superior Court (1996) 51 Cal.App.4th 233, 239-242.)
Because plaintiff did not meet this burden, summary judgment was appropriate.
Disposition
The judgments are affirmed.
We concur:
CALLAHAN, Acting P.J.
ROBIE, J.
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