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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evidence two elements of the case within the case: breach and
causation. Because the defendant was “‘not legally liable to [the]
plaintiff” (Campbell, at p. 753) in the underlying case, the
plaintiff could not prevail in the subsequent legal malpractice
case. Fair enough. But that’s not really a collectibility issue;
that’s a failure to prove the merits of the case within the case.
       So why was the court in Campbell discussing collectibility?
Because the plaintiff argued on appeal from the judgment in
favor of her former attorney that “a lawsuit (good or bad) is a
chose in action, hence property,” which has “actual value other
than that inhering in an existing right to recover” and that, to
value such an asset, the court must consider the probability of
success of the underlying action, “the settlement practices of the
insurance company,” the “eminence” of counsel, and “the vigor of
their investigation, preparation and presentation . . . .”
(Campbell, supra, 184 Cal.App.2d at pp. 753-745.) The court in
Campbell rightly recognized the plaintiff’s argument “advances
speculative values as a measure of recovery” (id. at p. 754); the
underlying action had no value because the plaintiff failed to
prove it. And it was in rejecting the plaintiff’s argument her
(loser) lawsuit still had value that the court in Campbell stated
the plaintiff’s argument violated the rule that a legal malpractice
plaintiff must prove he or she would have recovered and collected
on a judgment in the underlying case. (See id. at pp. 754-755.)
       Thus, Campbell does not stand for the proposition a legal
malpractice plaintiff must prove the judgment he or she would
have obtained was collectible. Campbell is a case about failure to
prove the case within the case, not failure to prove the judgment
in the case within the case would have been collectible. And in
contrast to the underlying case in Campbell, Kaushansky’s

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