Green v. Paz

Citations

• 211 Conn. App. 152

Syllabus

The plaintiff, who was incarcerated following his conviction on the basis of his guilty plea to multiple counts of assault in the first degree, sought damages for alleged legal malpractice by the defendants, two attorneys and their law firm, who had previously represented the plaintiff in a habeas action concerning his criminal conviction. The trial court granted the defendants' motion to dismiss and rendered a judgment of dismissal. On the plaintiff's appeal to this court, held that the trial court properly dismissed the plaintiff's legal malpractice action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because it was not ripe for adjudication; this court, applying the exoneration rule set forth in Taylor v. Wallace (184 Conn. App. 43), and subsequent cases, which holds that a legal malpractice action is not ripe for adjudication when success in that action would necessarily imply the invalidity of a conviction and the underlying convic- tion has not been invalidated, concluded that, 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. Argued February 14—officially released March 8, 2022