Insurance Law
Insurance Won’t Repay Clients Who Say Lawyer Swindled Them
Posted Dec 14, 2007, 08:32 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Malpractice insurance won’t cover more than $780,000 in losses claimed by clients of a Pennsylvania lawyer who committed suicide when he learned he was under investigation, a judge has ruled.
U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III held that several policy exclusions barred coverage, the Legal Intelligencer reports. They include a personal profit exclusion, a dishonesty exclusion and a conversion exclusion.
Raymond and Genevieve Diehl claim their lawyer, Michael J. Hanft, said he was borrowing the money for construction projects but lost most of it gambling. He committed suicide in August 2004. The Diehls have sued Hanft’s estate and his former firm.
The case involves "the tragic circumstances that resulted from a lawyer's double life," Jones wrote in his opinion.