Dave Schooler, Suzanne Jones, Dan Brees, and Erin Conlin recently obtained a complete defense verdict in a legal malpractice case on behalf of their attorney-client after a two-week jury trial in Hennepin County, Minnesota. At trial, the plaintiff sought $8,000,000 in damages, claiming her attorneys in an underlying employment discrimination case were negligent.
GRSM’s attorney-client represented the plaintiff in the underlying lawsuit against her former employer, the University of Minnesota–Duluth, after being terminated from her position as the women’s head hockey coach. The plaintiff had an enormously successful career in her position at UMN–Duluth, earning 5 NCAA championships. She claimed that her termination violated Title IX, Title VII and was discriminatory in violation of state and federal law based on the fact that she is gay and a woman. As soon as she was terminated, she hired GRSM’s client, a nationally-recognized Title IX attorney, as well as one of Minnesota’s preeminent trial attorneys to represent her in her lawsuit against UMN – Duluth.
After years of litigation in the underlying lawsuit against UMN – Duluth, GRSM’s client took the plaintiff’s Title IX and Title VII claims to trial in Minnesota federal court and obtained an outstanding verdict of $3,750,000 - the highest verdict for that type of case in the 8th Circuit at the time. In that case, the judge ultimately ordered remittitur and reduced the award by $2,250,000. Despite this front-page newsworthy verdict, the plaintiff later claimed that had her lawyers properly pursued her claims in state court rather than focusing on her claims in federal court, she would have won even more damages, such that she was now entitled to $8,000,000 for their alleged legal malpractice.
At trial in the legal malpractice action, GRSM’s Minneapolis trial team explained to the jury that the attorneys’ decision to file the plaintiff’s underlying claims against UMN – Duluth in federal court rather than state court was a strategy decision that was not only protected from claims of malpractice, but also was the correct decision, given the enormity of the ultimate verdict. Despite hearing from countless plaintiff’s witnesses regarding the purportedly homophobic environment at UMN – Duluth, the jury properly focused on the pertinent question at hand and concluded after a brief 2.5-hour deliberation that GRSM’s client was not negligent in their representation of the plaintiff in her underlying lawsuit.
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