The Pennsylvania Superior Court Allows Plaintiff to Pursue Professional Negligence Action Against Lawyers Under Breach of Contract Claim
In Poteat v. Asteak, 2024 PA Super 52, No. 729 EDA 2023 (March 21, 2024), the Pennsylvania Superior Court reversed the trial court’s decision to apply the gist of the case doctrine and rebrand a breach of contract claim as a tort claim, resulted in the dismissal of Plaintiff, Poteat’s claim.
Poteat entered into a written contract (“Contract”) with his attorneys, Asteak and Tinari (“Defendants”), to pay $7500 each in exchange for legal services associated with Poteat’s criminal prosecution for Possession with Intent to Deliver. The court convicted Poteat, and sentenced him to 5 to 10 years’ incarceration. Thereafter, Poteat filed a petition pursuant to the Post Conviction Relief Act alleging ineffective assistance of trial counsel for, inter alia, failing to file a speedy trial motion pursuant to Pa.R.Crim.P. 600. The PCRA court found the Defendants to be ineffective in their legal representation of Poteat and granted Poteat a new trial.
Thereafter, Poteat filed a breach of contract claim against the Defendants, alleging that they “failed to adequately perform with regards to the applicable standards of competence and diligence required in the field and profession of law. Specifically, Poteat claimed that the Defendants failed to raise Rule 600 issues, resulting in his incarceration for almost four years. The Defendants filed preliminary objections alleging that Poteat’s breach of contract claim was legally insufficient based on the gist of the case doctrine. More specifically, the Defendants argued that Poteat’s claim sounded like negligence, not contract, and therefore, Poteat’s claim was barred by the 2-year statute of limitations. The trial court concluded that asserting only general factual allegations of professional negligence was insufficient to support a breach of contract claim; therefore, the trial court sustained the preliminary objections and dismissed Poteat’s claim. Poteat appealed the decision to the Superior Court.
On appeal, Poteat argued that the Contract he had with the Defendants implicitly imposed on Defendants the duty to provide services consistent with the profession at large, and therefore, the trial court erred in misbranding his contract claim as a tort claim. Pennsylvania law holds that the gist of the case doctrine precludes plaintiffs from re-casting ordinary breach of contract claims into a tort claim.” Mirizio v. Joseph, 4 A.3d 1073, 1079 (Pa. Super. 2010). Here, the Court analyzed the case of Bruno v. Erie Insurance Company, 106 A.3d 48, 68 (Pa. 2014), a seminal case on the gist of the case doctrine, and heavily relied on by the trial court in dismissing Poteat’s case. Based on its analysis of Bruno, the Court concluded that the gist of the case doctrine did not extinguish contractual rights. Rather, the gist of the case doctrine simply addresses whether a plaintiff can assert a tort claim when the duty set forth in the contract is similar to the duty that the plaintiff alleges in a tort claim.
In determining whether the gist of the case doctrine barred Poteat’s breach of contract claim, the Superior Court analyzed Bailey v. Tucker, 621 A.2d 108, 115 (Pa. 1993), wherein the Court explained that an attorney who agrees for a fee to represent a client is by implication promising to provide that client with professional services consistent with those expected of the profession at large. The Superior Court also referenced the case of Gorski v. Smith, 812 A.2d 683, 692 (Pa. Super. 2002), wherein the Court held that when an attorney and client enter into an agreement for the attorney to provide legal services, the agreement contains an implicit “contractual duty” on the attorney to render legal services in a manner that comports with the profession at large. Accordingly, the Court held that when an attorney enters into a contract to provide legal services, there automatically arises a contractual duty on the part of the attorney to render those legal services in a manner that comports with the profession at large. Thus, the Court reversed the trial court’s decision, concluding that a breach of contract claim may properly be premised on an attorney’s failure to fulfill his or her contractual duty to provide the agreed-upon legal services in a manner consistent with the profession at large.
The Superior Court’s opinion in Poteat v. Asteak, 2024 PA Super 52, No. 729 EDA 2023 (March 21, 2024) can be accessed here.
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