DeCastro West Chodorow & Burns, Inc. v. Superior Court

Petitioners, who are defendants in an action for legal malpractice, seek a writ of mandate to compel the superior court to vacate its March 11, 1996, order denying summary adjudication on the issue of plaintiffs’ entitlement to “lost opportunity” damages, and to compel the superior court to grant their motion for summary adjudication of that issue. The primary issue presented on this proceeding is whether Code of Civil Procedure section 437c, subdivision (f)(1), permits summary adjudication with respect to only one of two or more components of compensatory damages claimed by plaintiff, so that the granting of the motion will not completely dispose of a cause of action. We conclude that section 437c, subdivision (f)(1), does not permit summary adjudication under such circumstances, and the trial court properly denied defendants’ motion for summary adjudication on that ground.

Procedural Background

In June 1993, plaintiffs filed a complaint for legal malpractice against DeCastro West Chodorow & Bums, Inc. (DeCastro) and Bmce S. Glickfeld (Glickfeld), alleged to be a member and shareholder of the DeCastro firm; in June 1994, plaintiffs filed a first amended complaint…