Rep. Randal Mangham’s bad day in court
May 7, 2009 at 7:51 pm by Scott Henry in NewsState Rep. Randal Mangham, D-DeKalb, an attorney, was found liable by a DeKalb jury yesterday for a stunning $625,000 in damages for legal malpractice, according to Jim Walls at Atlanta Unfiltered.
According to some attorneys I spoke to, legal malpractice cases are somewhat rare because the burden of proof for the plaintiff is fairly high. It’s not like medical malpractice, where folks have been known to sue their doctors because they didn’t like the outcome of a surgical procedure.
With legal malpractice, not only must you show that your attorney screwed up your case through some egregious, avoidable mistake — such as failing to file essential documents — but you’ve also got to convince a jury that if your case had been handled properly, you would’ve won. That’s where the damages come in, as compensation for the money the attorney prevented his client from collecting.
Anyway, Mangham was sued by a former plaintiff who he represented in a personal injury case stemming from a 1995 car wreck. The client, Karen Smith, accused Mangham of missing several filing deadlines and other procedural snafus that not only lost her the case but prevented her from re-filing. The two had already been to court in 2005, resulting in a $293,000 judgement against Mangham, who appealed the decision.
He should’ve let bad enough alone. Yesterday’s decision will cost him more than double the damages assessed against him in 2005.
A spokesperson with the Georgia Bar Association tells me the organization doesn’t keep any stats on legal malpractice and doesn’t apply any penalties to members found liable for legal malpractice. But it’s bound to hurt an attorney’s reputation and, in Mangham’s case, it could provide ammunition for future political opponents.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:59 am
Don’t forget that Rep. Mangham was also one of the legislators who owed back taxes. Mangham owed over $13,000. Jim Walls uncovered that one too:
http://atlantaunfiltered.com/atlmainstream2.html
Three of South DeKalb’s finest: Randal Mangham, Pam Stephenson, and Ron Sailor Jr.
May 8th, 2009 at 11:14 am
“It’s not like medical malpractice, where folks have been known to sue their doctors because they didn’t like the outcome of a surgical procedure.”
After 2005 and SB 3, filing a medical malpractice claim in GA is nearly impossible and often times it costs more to file (due to the law) than a recovery would even provide for. Medical malpractice is the 8th leading cause of death in the United States. The same standard of proof is needed in both legal malpractice and medical malpractice– it’s just that doctors kill people a lot more often so we hear about them more.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
Awesome ’stache.
May 8th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Rebecca, as someone who litigates medical malpractice cases I have to disagree with your statement that after SB3 “filing a medical malpractice case in GA is nearly impossible.” Case filings dropped somewhat after SB3, but plenty of new medmal cases are still filed every year. It most certainly has not become impossible to file or prove a medmal claim in Georgia after tort reform. It just has become less economically feasible for plaintiff’s attorneys to file the more marginal cases where the damages complained of are small. This is not a bad thing, since not every instance of potential malpractice should form the basis of a lawsuit.
Furthermore, it is silly to blame a drop in medical malpractice filings on the advent of tort reform, since virtually all of the provisions of tort reform enacted in 2005 with respect to medmal claims have been invalidated by the GA Supreme Court or the Ct of Appeals in the last 3 years. Much of SB3 has been gutted by the courts, so why would it still be affecting filings when most of it is not in effect?
What is presently required in order to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit is the same thing that was required prior to 2005–an affidavit from a qualified physician who holds the opinions both that the defendant doctor breached the applicable standard of care and that this breach caused or contributed to an injury to the patient. It probably costs most plaintiff’s attorneys about $5K to get such an affidavit after having a physician review the medical records and help put the affidavit together Filing fees are less than $500. So your math appears way off when you claim that it now “cost more” to file the suit than the expected recovery (assuming the plaintiff’s claimed injuries are more than a tiny scar in a non-visible area, or a few extra days in the hospital..which, again, should not rise to the level of a lawsuit.)
If your problem is with the caps on non-economic damages that were contained in SB3, those are currently under challenge and may not survive appellate review…but even if they do, $500,000.00 is hardly chump change for non-economic damages. For a wrongful death claim, lost future earnings are still recoverable and uncapped, while for cases in which the patient experiences long term complications or diminished earning capacity, both lost earnings and future medical expenses are still recoverable and not capped. This cap ONLY applies to damages that are considered “non-economic,” like pain and suffering.
May 9th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
Wow! How soon will he have to pay up? I am so tired of hearing about the same politicians getting away with breaking the law, but not paying for it!