Federal Court Grants Summary Judgment Dismissing $20 Million Legal Malpractice Claim Against Firm's Client, Arising From Holocaust Claims
The Southern District of New York (by Judge Pogue of the U.S. Court of International Trade, sitting by designation) recently dismissed all claims of negligence, malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty against TKD's client, an attorney and his law firm. Plaintiffs, the nieces and nephews of Gustav and Claire Kirstein, had claimed that defendant breached his duties to them when he engaged in a joint representation of all heirs of the Kirsteins from whom businesses, real property and art work had been confiscated by the Nazis. Defendant had successfully recovered significant assets of the Kirsteins from the German government and the plaintiffs had sued to recover a portion of the recovery that had gone to other Kirstein heirs. On our motion for summary judgment, the Court dismissed plaintiffs’ $20 million claim, based on an analysis of the German Property Law of 1990 that created a claim to recover the property after reunification of West and East Germany. The Court determined that defendant's analysis had been correct and, accordingly, that the plaintiffs had suffered no damages. TKD litigators Andrew N. Krinsky and Debra Bodian Bernstein handled this matter.
Prior results do not guarantee a similar outcome
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