Monthly Archives: December 2013

No matter how conscientious, environmental lawyers, like other attorneys, are regularly sued for legal malpractice.  It is not difficult to imagine some of the dicey situations where the environmental practitioner may fall prey to such claims:

(1) a municipality sues its lawyer after the municipality defaults on its bonds because of an unforeseen environmental problem that prevented the subject property from being developed. The lawyer is accused of not having described the risks inherent in the property’s development and for not conducting a proper environmental investigation;

Contract negotiations involving limitations on liability and disclaimers of damages for breach of contract and tort claims can have significant ramifications for the contracting parties if the business relationship falls apart and litigation results. Under New York law, how the parties negotiate the allocation of risk of loss is enormously important.

This lesson was brought home in a noteworthy New York Court of Appeals decision in Abacus Federal Savings Bank v. ADT Security Services, Inc. et al., 18 N.Y.3d 675, 944 N.Y.S.2d 443 (N.Y. 2012). In that case, Abacus Federal Savings Bank (“Abacus”) brought an action against two firms that provide security services, ADT Security Services (“ADT”) and Diebold, Inc. (“Diebold”) to recover damages under tort and contract theories for losses incurred during a burglary at the bank.