14 Mass. App. Ct. 929 | Mass. App. Ct. | 1982
The plaintiff was required to present evidence sufficient to warrant jury findings that the defendants had failed to exercise reasonable care and skill in handling her case, see Caverly v. McOwen, 123 Mass. 574, 578 (1878); McLellan v. Fuller, 226 Mass. 374, 377-378 (1917); Glidden v. Terranova, 12 Mass. App. Ct. 597, 598 (1981), that she had incurred a loss, and that the defendants’ malpractice was the proximate cause of the loss, see McLellan v. Fuller, supra at 378; Nolan, Tort Law § 185 (1979). There was nothing in the testimony of the defendants or in their communications with the plaintiff which could have been found to constitute an admission of malpractice. Compare Republic Oil Corp. v. Danziger, 9 Mass. App. Ct. 858, 859 (1980). See Mallen & Levit, Legal Malpractice § 663 (2d ed. 1981). Whether a reasonably competent lawyer would have proceeded differently under former Rule 41 of the Probate Courts (1959), or any statute which governed service in domestic relations cases in 1970, based on the sketchy information furnished by the plaintiff about her husband’s whereabouts in Africa, or the information that he was in Boston on some unspecified day in December, 1970, was not within the field of common knowledge possessed by a jury. As a consequence, the plaintiff was obliged to present expert testimony “to establish the standard of care owed by an attorney in the particular circumstances and the de
Judgment affirmed.
