Rhee-Karn v. Lask
- Robert Lehrburger
- 1:15-cv-09946
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Rhee-Karn v. Lask, Judge Cote denied Lask’s motion to reconsider summary judgment in Rhee-Karn’s legal-malpractice case.
Susan Chana Lask’s motion for reconsideration was denied, leaving the earlier summary-judgment rulings unchanged; the opinion also preserved Margaret Rhee-Karn’s summary judgment on the malpractice claim involving the 2012 federal action.
What happened
Margaret Rhee-Karn sued Susan Chana Lask over Lask’s work as her lawyer in several matters. In an earlier opinion, the court granted Rhee-Karn summary judgment on her legal-malpractice claim involving a 2012 federal court action, while granting Lask summary judgment on claims involving a later federal action and New York Family Court representation.
Lask asked the court to reconsider the earlier ruling, arguing that the court had overlooked evidence. The court said Lask had not identified that evidence in her opposition papers or required statement of disputed facts, and that the court was not required to search the record for evidence the opposing party had not properly presented. The court also said the evidence would not change its conclusion about the 2012 action.
In Rhee-Karn v. Lask, Judge Denise Cote denied Lask’s motion for reconsideration for both reasons.
The detailed version
- Rhee-Karn v. Lask · No. 1:15-cv-09946
- Robert Lehrburger
- Mar. 24, 2020
Background
Margaret Rhee-Karn brought legal-malpractice claims against Susan Chana Lask based on Lask’s representation of Rhee-Karn. In the earlier March Opinion, the court granted summary judgment to Rhee-Karn on the malpractice claim connected to a 2012 federal action. Summary judgment is a decision without a trial when the record shows that the relevant facts do not require a trial. The March Opinion also granted summary judgment to Lask on malpractice claims connected to a second federal action filed in 2013 and to Lask’s representation of Rhee-Karn in New York Family Court.
On March 18, 2020, Lask moved for reconsideration of the March Opinion.
Arguments and analysis
A motion for reconsideration is subject to a strict standard. It generally requires the moving party to identify controlling law or information the court overlooked, a change in controlling law, new evidence, a clear error, or a need to prevent serious injustice. It is not meant to give a party another chance to relitigate issues or present evidence and theories that could have been raised earlier.
Lask argued that the court had overlooked evidence in the summary-judgment record. The court rejected that argument for two independent reasons. First, Lask had not cited the evidence in her opposition brief or in her required statement responding to the facts supporting Rhee-Karn’s summary-judgment motion. The court explained that it was not required to search the record for evidence that Lask had not adequately presented.
Second, the court concluded that the evidence Lask cited would not change the earlier ruling on the 2012 federal action. The court reiterated that Lask voluntarily dismissed that action in February 2013 and researched the underlying legal issues only afterward, in May 2013. Lask then advised Rhee-Karn against filing a second federal action. The court stated that this was why the earlier opinion granted Rhee-Karn summary judgment on the malpractice claim connected to the 2012 action.
Disposition
Judge Denise Cote denied Lask’s March 18, 2020 motion for reconsideration for both stated reasons. This opinion did not alter the earlier summary-judgment rulings.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.