$5 Million Legal Malpractice Verdict

A jury in a federal court in Detroit has imposed $5 million in damages for legal malpractice against a Michigan law firm that provided advice on an acquisition. Trade magazine Business Insurance America reports that Jaffe Raitt Heuer & Weiss PC was sued by the two owners of a holding company that acquired a small manufacturing enterprise with a big pension liability. The plaintiffs claimed that a name partner from the law firm had advised them that if the business failed neither they personally nor their holding company would be responsible for the pension liability, as long as no one had more than an 80 percent ownership stake. The company went into receivership in 2016 and the pension fund claimed the owners were responsible for the liability, which had reached almost $5 million.