Wisniewski v. Palermino

Citations

• 351 Conn. 390

Syllabus

The plaintiffs, a friend and two grandchildren of the decedent, W, appealed from the judgment of the trial court, which had dismissed their professional negligence and breach of contract claims relating to the defendant attorney's preparation of W's will. The plaintiffs alleged, inter alia, that the defendant had failed to execute W's estate plan in accordance with W's wishes insofar as W intended that, upon his death, his interest in a certain security account would be distributed in five equal shares to the plaintiffs and two other individuals but all the account's assets ultimately were distributed to only one of those individuals, who previously had been designated as the sole beneficiary of the account. The court's dismissal of the plaintiffs' profes- sional negligence claim was based on its determination that the plaintiffs lacked standing because, under Connecticut law, an attorney can be held liable to a third-party beneficiary of a will only for errors relating to the drafting or execution of the will, and the allegations relating to that count concerned the defendant's failure to ensure that W changed the account's designated beneficiary. The subsequent dismissal of the plaintiffs' breach of contract claim was based on the court's conclusion that that claim was functionally identical to the previously dismissed professional negligence claim. On appeal, the plaintiffs challenged the trial court's dismissal of their claims. Held: The trial court improperly dismissed the plaintiffs' professional negligence claim but properly dismissed their breach of contract claim, and, accordingly, this court reversed in part the trial court's judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings with respect to the plaintiffs' professional negligence This case originally was argued before a panel of this court consisting of Chief Justice Mullins and Justices McDonald, D'Auria, Ecker, Alexander and Dannehy. Thereafter, Judge Westbrook was added to the panel and has read th