Arnav Indus., Inc. Retirement Trust v. Brown, Raysman, Millstein, Felder & Steiner

In Arnav Indus., Inc. Retirement Trust v. Brown, Raysman, Millstein, Felder & Steiner (96 NY2d 300, 751 N.E.2d 936, 727 N.Y.S.2d 688 [2001]), the attorney sent a revised version of a settlement agreement to the client for signature, and advised the client that a typographical error had been identified and corrected in the first paragraph of the original agreement. The attorney further advised that the agreement was otherwise identical. Based on this advice, the client did not review the revised version beyond the first paragraph and signed it. However, the revised version contained another typographical error in another portion of the document, one which represented a $ 4,000,000 detriment to the client. The Court found that the asserted reliance on the attorney's assurance that except for the error in the first paragraph the document was identical to the original -- in effect, advising the client that no further review was necessary -- was enough to preserve the claim of legal malpractice.