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Sam B. Franklin and William L. Cameron recently won reversal on appeal of an adverse summary judgment decision in TES Liquidating v. Smith, a legal-malpractice case. The underlying case involved competing security interests in a failed business. The business, Eagle Electric, owed money to a union trust fund and to TES Liquidating, both of which had security interests in Eagle’s bank account. Defendant-attorney Smith represented the union trust fund. TES attempted to collect on a judgment it had against Eagle and garnished funds in Frontier Bank. Frontier answered that it had no interest in the money. Smith intervened in the garnishment on behalf of the union trust fund and asserted a prior security interest. That security interest was not properly perfected and was subordinate to TES’s judgment, but in the meantime, the bank realized that it had a security interest that took priority over those of both TES and the union trust fund. The bank amended its answer to assert its security interest and later collected on its security interest, to the exclusion of TES and the union trust fund. TES then sued Smith, claiming that had he not intervened, TES would have collected on its debt from the bank which until then had failed to assert its security interest. The trial court agreed with TES and awarded judgment against Smith. Sam and Bill persuaded Division Two of the Court of Appeals to reverse and to dismiss the action. The Court of Appeals held that neither Smith’s conduct nor his client's assertion of the priority of its security interest caused the loss to TES.

Phil Grennan and Rosemary J. Moore won a defense verdict on behalf of King County in Ferguson v. The Lakeside Group, an indemnity-contract action by a cross-claim plaintiff. King County had rented scaffolding equipment from Safway Services for a concert. A worker fell from the scaffolding and later sued. Safway won a defense verdict but pursued indemnity against King County based on terms in a “rental agreement” that it had provided to King County when delivering the scaffolding. The document stated that King County must defend, hold harmless, and indemnify Safway and pay its attorney fees. However, that language appeared on the reverse side of the documentation, which was never provided to King County. At the end of the trial on the indemnity claim, the court agreed with Phil and Rosemary that no one from King County had ever agreed to the indemnity terms and rejected Safway’s request for more than $500,000 in attorney fees.

Steven G. Wraith and Janis Pelletier won summary judgment of dismissal of the general contractor’s contractual defense and indemnity claim in Paladino v. Electric Home Service. Steve and Janis’s client performed electrical work on a project at the University of Washington Medical Center. The plaintiff was electrocuted and filed suit against the general contractor and Steve and Janis’s client. The plaintiff later voluntarily dismissed Steve and Janis’s client for lack of evidence. Steve and Janis then moved to dismiss the indemnity claim. The court agreed with Steve and Janis that their client’s contractual duty to defend the general contractor was not triggered and that there was no legal basis for the indemnity claim.