Have You Ever Sued Anybody

Has anyone ever sued themselves?

Technically, this is not supposed to be possible but I know one case in which it happened. In Massachusetts, if you disagree with a decision of the zoning board of your city or town, you file a lawsuit naming the board members individually. No this does not impose personal liability. One time the chair of the zoning board owned property next to the property that was being considered by our zoning board. He was also an attorney. As the chair owned property next door, he recused himself and left the city hall while the hearing and subsequent deliberations went on. The decision gave the applicant more relief than he was entitled to. So the chair, as a abutter, had standing to sue to overturn the opinion. But he was a member of the board. That meant he had to be named as a defendant. So he was both the plaintiff and one of the defendants. When I was in law school (decades ago) we used to joke about suing ourselves for nonsupport. But the chair was the first attorney I knew to legitimately sue himself. When I saw the complaint I laughed so hard I had to call the chair’s attorney (his then law partner) to congratulate him.

Has anyone ever sued themselves and won?

I was working for a commercial insurance company when I saw this happen. The owner of a mid-sized company gave his son a corvette for a company car. His useless son was on the payroll as a manager. His duties were keeping his chair warm. He came home drunk one night and ran into his own garage door. He turned in a liability claim on his company car claiming as an employee the company was liable for him hitting the garage door under respondent superior, and they should pay for his door.We denied the claim under the common law doctrine that you can not be liable to yourself. Technically he had a point, if this employer had any negligence he could pursue the claim against the company. In Texas you have to file suit against the driver of a company car , and the company for negligent hiring. So he did. His attorney claimed in the petition the company hired him and allowed him to drive a company car even know they knew he was a drunk, so the company was responsible for him hitting his own door. We got the judge to drop the part of the suit against himself due to the common law doctrine, but the judge let the case go forward against the company.We informed his dad, the owner, we would need his deposition to see if he knew his son was a drunk. He refused. We then declined to defend the company for failure to cooperate in his companies defense. So dad had to hire an attorney to defend his company against his son’s suit for $2,500.00 door. The father fired his son. The case was dropped by the son now unemployed as he could not pay his attorney.Soon after we canceled his general liability, business auto, and work comp insurance for his refusal to cooperate in the company’s defense of a suit. He had to shop for a new carrier, I understand his rates went ballistic. He filed suit for wrongful termination of a policy. We got it dismissed and he had to pay our costs.

Has anyone ever sued their own lawyer and gotten away with it?

Of course. But there is nothing to “get away with” since it is a legal right belonging to every client. There is nothing special about lawyers that makes them immune to suit. I say that although as a litigator I thought it was like throwing the fox in the briar patch to threaten a litigator with a lawsuit.I was sort-of sued once by a guy whom my client had hired me to investigate. The guy was the CEO of an out-of-state business my client had purchased, and the company was hemorrhaging money and the subject of an involuntary bankruptcy proceeding. My client sent me to find out why, and I did. It was the guy he had hired as GM, who was even incompetent as an embezzler. I get back, give my report, and a few weeks later I get a summons saying that I had somehow breached the duty of loyalty owed to a client. The plaintiff was the embezzler, not my client, who was disappointed but had begun by firing the guy. Supposedly there was a conspiracy among myself, the US Attorney for the district who had opened an investigation for fraud against the guy, and a few other people. So I contacted my insurer, who authorized me to represent myself at my usual rate since they thought the whole thing ridiculous.As a side note, I had never met the US Attorney before that suit, but I called and invited him to lunch since I thought that, as co-conspirators, we should at least be able to recognize one another on the street.Anyway, I scheduled the guy for a deposition and in short order, he fired his lawyer who filed the suit, amended to name his old lawyer as a co-conspirator, and checked himself into a mental institution. From which he files a personal bankruptcy case. So I get a court order allowing me to take his deposition in the bankruptcy case, through which he has now provided me with federal jurisdiction. He comes and confesses to no less than three counts of bankruptcy crimes during the course of the deposition. His newest lawyer turned green and asked me if I would be willing to let the guy dismiss the suit against me. I said if he dismissed the entire suit against every defendant with prejudice to being able to refile it. And he did.An object lesson that suing a lawyer may not necessarily be the smartest thing to do. But some people do and live to tell the tale. It just isn’t easy, nor should it be.