by Christopher J. Graham and Joseph P. Kelly

Elmo v. Callahan, 2012 WL 3669010 (D. N.H Aug. 24, 2012)

District court granted summary judgment to defendant attorney in transactional legal malpractice claim because plaintiffs failed to prove proximate cause. Defendant attorney represented both buyer and sellers of a business. Attorney stood to make over $200,000 if the sale went through, while sellers received cash, subordinated debt, and other equity from buyer. The sale went through but buyer went under soon after. Plaintiffs – the sellers that received subordinated debt and equity in buyer – sued for legal malpractice. Plaintiffs failed to prove proximate cause because they “presented no evidence as to why [the purchasing company] collapsed, let alone any evidence that [the purchasing company’s] collapse or the reasons for it should have been foreseeable to [the attorney].”