Reality Check: Think Twice Before Suing Your Lawyer

[Tayken]

For all our friendly (and helpful) monkey's bashing rocks into keyboards here is recent case law that hopefully will deter highly conflicted litigants from suing their lawyers...

Marcus v. Cochrane, 2014 ONCA 207 (CanLII)
Date: 2014-03-20
Docket: C55101
Citation: Marcus v. Cochrane, 2014 ONCA 207 (CanLII)
CanLII - 2014 ONCA 207 (CanLII)

[19] Mr. Marks’ bill on a partial indemnity basis is $202,649.15. Even if he charges his own client on no more than a partial indemnity basis, the appellant will face a total cost from her own lawyer of some $375,000 to try and unsuccessfully appeal a claim for $80,000. In my view, that is completely unjustifiable.

[20] Respondents’ counsel has submitted a vastly more reasonable partial indemnity bill of $49,001.53. While the appellant succeeded on one issue, she was unsuccessful on two of the three issues in this court. The respondents therefore deserve some modest costs. I would order costs of the appeal to the respondents in the sum of $20,000 inclusive of disbursements and taxes.

It cost the litigant 375,000 to appeal a claim for $80,000!

Here is the article on it too:

Woman who sued divorce lawyer ordered to pay $80K | CityNews

Litigants are always reminded to be very cautious when attempting to sue their lawyers / file complaints.

Good Luck!
Tayken

[Links17]

Obviously with everything don't be an idiot but if you can very clearly identify faults your lawyer made and show how they damaged you (VERY SPECIFIC FAULTS ---> VERY SPECIFIC DAMAGES ) and that if your lawyer had NOT made those faults the outcome would have been different then you can win , obviously avoiding going in front of a judge is a crapshoot so you generally settle.

[arabian]

Did the appeal not reduce costs in the end to 20k?

[Tayken]

Did the appeal not reduce costs in the end to 20k?

Costs were 60,000 (para. 16) + 20,000 (para. 20) = 80,000 in costs.

Which were originally 160,000 from the previous order.

But, one has to consider that the person in this matter now owes:

80,000 in costs (see above comment)
+ 375,000 in costs owing to their own solicitor
==============================
455,000 in stupidity

Good Luck!
Tayken

[HammerDad]

I read it as $20k for the appeal, plus whatever they were owed from before.

[arabian]

I concur - judge tossed out the 375k as being unreasonable.

[Tayken]

I concur - judge tossed out the 375k as being unreasonable.

That is the cost that the losing party is paying to their lawyer already as stated:

the appellant will face a total cost from her own lawyer of some $375,000 to try and unsuccessfully appeal a claim for $80,000.

The judge was waxing poetic a bit when stating:

In my view, that is completely unjustifiable.

Unjustifiable that someone would spend 375,000 to seek 80,000 in lost funds. Penny wise - pound foolish?

See my total above and the references to the paragraphs. In addition the articles being published also state the total cost order being "80,000" (60,000 + 20,000) as the total of the two above mentioned paragraphs in my calculation.

The 375,000 is the total costs the litigant in this matter has to pay their lawyer for this nonsense. Hence the total provide.

Numbers are accurate and referenced directly to the paragraphs in the provided case law. A deeper investigation by those in opposition to my position on the costs is recommended.

The original 160,000 costs award was reduced to 60,000 and then the costs for the appeal were 20,000. Which add to 80,000 as identified in my calculation above (para 16 and 20 respectively).

As cited in the article I additionally referenced (The title also states that the Applicant in the matter was ordered to pay 80,000 too.):

Instead, the court ordered Marcus, of Ottawa, to pay lawyer Carol Ann Cochrane $60,000 for trial costs, and another $20,000 for the appeal.

Highly unlikely the lawyer representing the Applicant in this matter who charged her 375,000 is going to walk away from their costs. Now, with the quote from a judge that the bill is "unjustifiable" it may reduce that cost for the Applicant in that matter. But, the Applicant will have to raise another complaint to the law society to reduce the bill or bring another lawsuit against yet another lawyer for giving bad advice??

Good Luck!
Tayken

[HammerDad]

The appellant paid $455,000 because she only received ~$5000 in equalization, instead of maybe $50k-60k. To me, that is bad math.

[arabian]

I think the appeal judge's decision read like a pretty big endorsement for her lawyers to have to cut their bill dramatically. I really doubt she paid that much in the end. We will probably never know as I can't see a lawyer going to court over the bill with this ruling from a Court of Appeal judge. "Counsel must cut the cloth to fit" (para 15.

Still an interesting case. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I agree with you HammerDad that this is indeed a case of bad math if we're only talking about a difference of 55 k in equalization. Nuts really.

[Rioe]

Getting $50k in equalization = $455k
Being right = priceless

[Links17]

Its possible her lawyer filed the full cost of her battle in the court but had no intention of collectint that much... Just a show for the judge basically to say "look how much she has paid to go through this action"

[Stillbreathing]

It's also possible she is in cahoots with her lawyer. That together they dreamed up the outrageous amount in legal fees with the intention of 1) asking for costs and 2) on the off chance they won and were actually awarded costs , they would split the windfall!

[Tayken]

The appellant paid $455,000 because she only received ~$5000 in equalization, instead of maybe $50k-60k. To me, that is bad math.

High conflict people are not necessarily great at math.

[Tayken]

Its possible her lawyer filed the full cost of her battle in the court but had no intention of collectint that much... Just a show for the judge basically to say "look how much she has paid to go through this action"

That would be fraud sir. To present false evidence - especially by a professional.

[Tayken]

It's also possible she is in cahoots with her lawyer. That together they dreamed up the outrageous amount in legal fees with the intention of 1) asking for costs and 2) on the off chance they won and were actually awarded costs , they would split the windfall!

Again, a miss representation of facts by doing this would be fraud and perjury. No lawyer, even a crappy high conflict one, would engage in such transparent nonsense. What I think we have here is a situation where a lawyer was able to drum up a lot of business. The challenge the lawyer faces is collecting on the debt...