Posted by Larry Magnus on 2/13/05

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Attorney Negligence:

The questions I have are:
1) Do I have a suit for negligence against the
attorney?
2) Since the attorney is in California and I am in
Texas would I file suit in California or Texas?
3) Would it be better to file a complaint with the
California Bar first and get the results of that and then
file the suit against the attorney or does the order of
these two events matter?

The case:
Before his death my father and stepmother placed a piece of
property in a Living Trust. The property is in
California. My father was the pre-deceased trustor and
stepmother the Co-trustor and trustee. Both are now
deceased. I am the beneficiary of the property. Over the
last year, the successor trustee refused to distribute the
property according to the trust claiming he is a
beneficiary and by not making the mortgage payments forced
the property into foreclosure proceedings. The trustee
used the foreclosure as negotiation tool try to mediate
money from the trust that he is not entitled to. Due to
the privacy laws, I was blocked from information from the
mortgage company, Real Estate Agent, collection company and
later the title company (since I was not the trustee) but
eventually I was able to make up the back payments on the
property to get the property out of foreclosure. As soon
as I got the property out of foreclosure, the trustee sold
the property (which he had no right under the trust) for
well below the market value of the property. The trustee
refused to disclose any information about the sale and I
only saw the sales agreement after the property closed
escrow. The trustee allowed his father to submit
fraudulent charges against the trust that were paid out of
the escrow. Just prior to the sale of the property, the
trustee filed for bankruptcy leaving me with no recourse
against the trustee.

The attorney:
The attorney was in on what was happening since the
trustee’s refusal to distribute the property. I maintained
close communications with the attorney to let him know the
events that I learned so nothing that happened in the
entire case was a surprise to him. He could have stopped
the loss by filing to have the trustee removed and he did
not. He could have filed an injunction preventing the sale
and he did not. He could have filed for Judicial
Determination and did one day before the sale of the
property. He only told me of his intent to do nothing with
stopping the sale with less than 40 hours to close of
escrow on the property. That left me no time to fire him
and find another attorney who could come up to speed on the
case and file to have the sale stopped. Repeatedly I ask
to have the trustee removed and at times he promised he had
the paperwork at the courthouse. Repeatedly I ask to have
a him file for Judicial Determination and he did not. When
I learned the trustee intended to sell the property, I was
demanding that the trustee distribute the property
according to the trust and the attorney did nothing. He
knew the sale of the property would be financially
devastating and the trustee was bankrupt so I could not
recover from the trustee’s actions. To me this attorney's
negligence in allowing the trustee to take the actions the
trustee did with no actions or attempts to stop it by the
attorney (even at my demands) had a great financial loss to
me. When I saw I was not going to get any support from
this attorney, I fought the sale up to the last day in
every legal way I could think of. This attorney does have
malpractice insurance.

To me it is an incredible breach of ethics.

This information is all documented in letters and emails.

How do I find attorney that will take this kind of case?

Where do I start to clean up this mess?

Re: Attorney Negligence, 12/18/07, by JAMES F MAGNUS.

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