Cooke v. Williams

Citations

• 206 Conn. App. 151

Syllabus

The plaintiff, who was incarcerated following his conviction of various criminal charges, including murder, sought damages for, inter alia, alleged legal malpractice and fraud by the defendants, an attorney and his law firm, who had previously represented the plaintiff in a habeas action concerning his criminal conviction. The plaintiff alleged that the defendants provided deficient representation in the habeas action by failing to prosecute fully and properly his action and by engaging in fraudulent billing practices. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss and rendered a judgment of dismissal, concluding that the plaintiff's claims against the defendants were not ripe for adjudi- cation because his underlying criminal conviction had not been invali- dated. On the plaintiff's appeal to this court, held: 1. The trial court properly dismissed the plaintiff's legal malpractice claim for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because it was not ripe for adjudi- cation; this court, in Taylor v. Wallace (184 Conn. App. 43), held that a tort action is not ripe for adjudication when success in that action would necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction and that the action must be dismissed unless the underlying conviction has been invalidated, and, because the plaintiff had been convicted and that conviction had not been invalidated on direct appeal or through a habeas action, his claim was a collateral attack on his underlying conviction, his claim for legal malpractice was not ripe, and the trial court lacked subject matter jurisdiction. 2. The trial court improperly dismissed the plaintiff's claim of fraud as not ripe to the extent the allegations of fraud did not implicate the validity of his conviction; the plaintiff's allegations in support of his fraud claim, that the retainer contract was misrepresented, he was billed for work the defendants did not do, and the defendants inflated or padded the hours they worked, simply alleged a fee dispute,