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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rights specialists” at a price that reflects various factors,
including the age of the judgment, the degree of difficulty of
locating the judgment debtor’s assets, and the extent to which the
judgment debtor has taken actions to protect his or her assets.
That the defendant may not have (sufficient) assets to pay a
judgment at the time of trial may affect the value of the
judgment, but it does not mean the judgment has no value at all.
Collection agencies and attorneys representing judgment
creditors are very patient beasts and routinely collect on
judgments over time.
       So how did we get what I think is a bad rule?
       The leading and most-cited case for the rule a plaintiff
asserting a claim for legal malpractice, unlike any other plaintiff
asserting any other kind of claim, must prove he or she would
have been able to collect on the underlying judgment is Campbell
v. Magana (1960) 184 Cal.App.2d 751 (Campbell). The plaintiff
in Campbell suffered personal injuries when an incinerator in a
hardware store fell on her foot. (Id. at p. 759.) She sued the
store, but her attorneys failed to bring the action to trial, and the
court dismissed it for failure to prosecute. (Id. at p. 760.) The
plaintiff sued her attorneys for malpractice, but lost after a court
trial. The court in Campbell affirmed, holding that, though the
attorneys were negligent (a finding not challenged), the plaintiff
had not proven damages. (Id. at p. 753.) The court in Campbell
stated “one who establishes malpractice on the part of his
attorney in prosecuting or defending a lawsuit must also prove
that careful management of it would have resulted in recovery of
a favorable judgment and collection of same or, in case of a
defense that proper handling would have resulted in a judgment
for the client; that there is no damage in the absence of these

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