Opinion
No. CA 06-00343.
March 16, 2007.
Appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court, Seneca County (Dennis F Bender, A.J.), entered December 14, 2005 in a legal malpractice action. The judgment granted defendants' motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint.
ANTHONY S. PIGNATARO, PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT PRO SE.
SIEGEL, KELLEHER KAHN, BUFFALO (STEVEN G. WISEMAN OF COUNSEL), DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT PRO SE, AND FOR BRIAN R. WELSH, DEFENDANT-RESPONDENT.
Present — Hurlbutt, J.P., Gorski, Peradotto and Green, JJ.
It is hereby ordered that the judgment so appealed from be and the same hereby is unanimously affirmed without costs.
Memorandum: Plaintiff commenced this legal malpractice action against defendant Brian R. Welsh, the attorney who represented him in a matrimonial action, and defendant Siegel, Kelleher Kahn, Welsh's law firm. Plaintiff alleged, inter alia, that Welsh engaged in negligent and improper conduct in connection with the appointment of a custodian for certain accounts established for plaintiff's children. Supreme Court properly granted defendants' motion seeking summary judgment dismissing the complaint. "In order to establish their entitlement to judgment as a matter of law, defendants had to present evidence in admissible form establishing that [plaintiff is] unable to prove at least one [of the] necessary element[s] of a legal malpractice action" ( Potter v Polozie, 303 AD2d 943, 943), i.e., "that [defendants] failed to exercise that degree of care, skill, and diligence commonly possessed and exercised by members of the legal community, that [their] negligence was a proximate cause of the loss sustained by [plaintiff], and that [plaintiff] incurred damages as a direct result of [defendants'] actions" ( Attonito v La Mirage of Southampton, 276 AD2d 454, 454). Here, defendants met their burden with respect to each necessary element, and plaintiff failed to raise a triable issue of fact ( see generally Zuckerman v City of New York, 49 NY2d 557, 562).