Supreme Court boosts interest calculation on legal-malpractice award

By Eric L. Lewis

Legal-malpractice plaintiffs may recover interest based on the total amount of the lost underlying settlement, without deduction for attorney fees they would have paid the defendant attorney, the Washington Supreme Court recently held in a case of first impression.

In Shoemake v. Ferrer, No. 81812-6 (Feb. 4, 2010), a drunk driver, Joseph Hernandez, struck and injured Andrea Shoemake in 1992. She hired attorney Douglas Ferrer to pursue recovery from the drunk driver and from Shoemake’s underinsured-motorist carrier, State Farm. She agreed to pay Ferrer a 40 percent contingent fee.

Ferrer mishandled Shoemake’s claim. He waited until two days before the statute of limitations ran before suing Hernandez. He failed to file a required confirmation of joinder pleading, and the trial court dismissed the case. Although he persuaded the court to reinstate the case, he failed to show up for the first day of trial and never informed Shoemake of the trial date. The trial court again dismissed the case. Ferrer did not tell Shoemake that the case had been dismissed but told her for several years that the court was too backlogged to consider her lawsuit. In 2005, Shoemake called the court herself and learned of the dismissal.

Shoemake sued Ferrer. Only then did she learn that State Farm had told Ferrer that it was willing to pay Shoemake its $100,000 UIM policy limit, but that Ferrer had never communicated this offer to Shoemake. Shoemake’s new attorney recovered the $100,000 from State Farm, 10 years after she could have received it.