Jury awards $4.5M for lawyers' errors

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A jury said a Florida law firm twice botched a woman's racial-discrimination case against her employer and now owes her $4.5 million for the errors.

The Circuit Court jury said a lawyer from the powerful Fort Lauderdale law firm of Becker & Poliakoff PA made errors that led to the September 2001 dismissal of Jackie Young's 1990s lawsuit against BellSouth Corp., now AT&T Inc., The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post reported.

On top of that, the firm didn't tell Young her case had been thrown out until October 2002 -- and by then it was too late for Young to fix the problems in the lawsuit and refile it, the complaint against the law firm alleged.

As a result, Young's claim against BellSouth -- as part of a class action lawsuit of 54 employees alleging racial discrimination against black employees -- was permanently dismissed with no avenue to appeal, Young's attorney, Craig Zobel, argued.

At the same time that the law firm neglected Young's case, it collected $2.9 million in attorney fees from others in the case, Zobel alleged.

Becker & Poliakoff senior partner Alan Becker said it would appeal the verdict, calling the damages "excessive," the Post reported.

He said the firm should not be blamed for the improper actions of a "rogue lawyer who filed this case without authority and contrary to his supervisor's clear direction."

Becker alleged his firm did not know the case was filed, much less dismissed due to attorney Thomas Romero's errors.

Romero, whom Becker said was later fired from the law firm and disbarred, "purposely hid" his misdeeds "from all parties," Becker alleged.