Kaushansky v. Stonecroft Attorneys, APC (2025)

Citation: Kaushansky v. Stonecroft Attorneys, APC (2025)
Parent Document: Kaushansky v. Stonecroft Attorneys, APC (2025)
Jurisdiction: California (state)
Effective Date: 2025-03-14
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/10356658/kaushansky-v-stonecroft-attorneys-apc/ ↗

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       2.    Analysis
       Substantial evidence supports the award of emotional
distress damages to Kaushanksy. Even accepting Stonecroft’s
assertion that emotional distress damages arising from a breach
of fiduciary duty claim require something more than mere
negligence, the evidence demonstrates Stonecroft’s withdrawal
amounted to intentional misconduct.
       The court found Stonecroft “essentially browbeat Plaintiff
into signing the substitution of attorney form without informing
her about the litigation landscape.” The litigation landscape was
this: On the day Stonecroft presented the substitution of
attorney form to Kaushansky, she was required to respond to the
landlord’s motion to compel her deposition and motion for
sanctions of $1,660. Stonecroft withdrew about two weeks before
the discovery cut-off date and six weeks before trial, “having
conducted no affirmative discovery and botched Plaintiff’s
responses to the landlord’s requests and with a pending discovery
and sanctions motion set for hearing on October 16, 2015.”
Stonecroft withdrew without securing a stipulation to continue
the discovery cut-off or the trial date. The court determined
Stonecroft filed a substitution of attorney because it was unlikely
the underlying court would grant its withdrawal so close to trial.
The court found Stonecroft “took no steps at all to protect
Plaintiff from the reasonably foreseeable prejudice arising from
Defendants’ abrupt disappearance.” Based on these
circumstances, the trial court found Stonecroft’s withdrawal was
“timed to allow them to escape the dire circumstances that
Plaintiff had to confront.”
       Stonecroft’s conduct is similar to the law firm’s conduct in
Betts, supra, 154 Cal.App.3d at pages 717 to 718, where the law

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