Brennan v. Ruffner

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that shareholder was not third-party beneficiary of contract of representation between corporation and its lawyer.
• suggesting minority shareholders may maintain claim for breach of fiduciary duty against counsel for close corporation under certain circumstances not presented in that case
• affirming grant of summary judgment in breach of fiduciary case on lack of causation against lawyer based on undisputed facts
• “where an attorney represents a closely held corporation, the attorney is not in privity with and therefore owes no separate duty of diligence and care to an individual shareholder”
• the rule of privity in legal malpractice actions is relaxed when the plaintiff is the intended third party beneficiary of the contract between the client and the attorney
• corporation attorney could not be liable to minority shareholder for breach of fiduciary duty in drafting of shareholders' agreement, where lawyer told shareholders collectively that he represented only the corporation in drafting of agreement

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).