Law Practice
$50M Malpractice Suit re 92 Parking Spaces
Posted Oct 19, 2007, 04:55 pm CST
By Martha Neil
A malpractice suit has been filed against Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman and two of the law firm's partners by a former client over its handling of a Washington, D.C., zoning appeal.
At issue in the case was the number of parking spaces then-client Capitol Hill Group was required to provide at a site at 700 Constitution Ave., N.E., leased to a nursing home and a hospital. The city at first said 85, but, after an appeal by a neighborhood group, changed the requirement to 177 spaces. The big problem: although the decision to up the parking space ante was made in September 2004, partners Paul Tummonds Jr. and Patrick Potter allegedly didn't inform their client of the increase until the following spring, recounts New York Lawyer (reg. req.), in a reprint of a Legal Times article.
By then, it was too late to appeal and the lack of required parking resulted in $50 million in damages, Capitol contends.