A Marietta man who hired Morgan & Morgan after being injured in a rear-end collision has won $4.3 million in a legal malpractice fight against the law firm, which he accused of settling his crash lawsuit for $45,000 without his permission.
Robert Wyrosdick said he was pleasantly shocked by the size of the award he received in an arbitration against the giant law firm and the lawyer it had assigned to represent him in his case over the 2023 collision that injured his back.
The 73-year-old craftsman said he had gotten little information or communication from Morgan & Morgan as a client, when he was unaware, among other things, that he’d agreed in hiring the firm to arbitrate any grievance against it. Now, he said he hopes the firm, which markets itself as America’s largest injury law firm, will treat clients better.
“I hope that this is going to have a bigger impact on the way that these guys operate,” Wyrosdick told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution this month after being paid the award, the bulk of which was imposed to punish and deter the law firm and attorney.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Morgan & Morgan CEO Alexander Clem told the AJC that the firm’s attorneys “live and breathe our mission of fighting for the people.” He said transparency and communication with clients are core values the firm takes seriously, adding it has recovered over $30 billion for clients since 2019.
The firm’s Atlanta office alone settled almost 50,000 cases in the last five years, filings show.
“In this case, an attorney received verbal client consent but then did not document it in writing,” Clem said. “While we strongly disagree with the findings of the arbitration award and do not believe they reflect the facts of the case or the dedication of the attorneys involved, we respect the process and we move forward.”
Wyrosdick’s case against the Florida-headquartered firm alleged in part that its lawyers are overloaded with client cases which are predominantly handled by non-attorney staff with little training. He claimed the firm’s lawyers are incentivized to settle cases quickly at high volume to collect commissions.
Roswell lawyer Warren Hinds testified in Wyrosdick’s arbitration about representing another former Morgan & Morgan client who was separately arbitrating a similar malpractice claim against the firm, filings show.
Hinds told the AJC that his client’s malpractice case against Morgan & Morgan was confidentially settled this month, days after Wyrosdick’s award was first publicly reported.
Clem pushed back on the notion that Wyrosdick’s award reflects a wider problem, telling the AJC that “an infinitesimal .0002%” of its cases in Georgia lead to a claim against the firm.
“More than 99.999% of our cases proceed without issue,” he said. “Whether you are a one-attorney shop or a 1,200-lawyer firm, mistakes can occasionally happen. What matters is that you make things right.”
Wyrosdick’s award was issued in July by arbitrator Erika Birg, an Atlanta attorney. She granted his claims of legal malpractice, breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty against Morgan & Morgan and its former lawyer, Corey Aitken, who handled his collision case before moving to the Ken Nugent law firm.
Birg, who was not tasked with explaining her findings, ordered Morgan & Morgan and Aitken to pay Wyrosdick $450,000 in compensatory damages, $250,000 in emotional distress damages, more than $400,000 in attorney fees and costs, and $3,150,000 in punitive damages.
Aitken, a lawyer since 2011, and the attorneys who represented him and the firm in the arbitration did not respond to questions about it.
Wyrosdick’s lawyers in the arbitration, Michael Flint and Mary Ellen Lighthiser, told the AJC they were confident he had a strong case against his former lawyer and the firm.
“He just wanted a lawyer to help him figure it out, rather than pull the rug out from under him,” Flint said.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
After being rear-ended by a box truck in March 2023, Wyrosdick hired Morgan & Morgan to file a lawsuit against the truck driver and their employer, case records show. The lawsuit was filed in Gwinnett County State Court in July 2023 and was initially assessed by the firm as potentially worth $250,000, based in part on the defendants’ commercial insurance coverage.
Wyrosdick said he spoke once to Aitken early in the case and subsequently to a paralegal before the case was settled, without his knowledge or permission, for $45,000 in early 2024. He said he had been preparing for a deposition when he was asked to finalize the deal.
“I just assumed things were moving along,” he told the AJC. “And then I received a release form for me to sign, stating that the case had been settled and that they had received a check from the insurance company.”
In an arbitration brief, Morgan & Morgan and Aitken said Wyrosdick verbally consented to the settlement then subsequently raised concerns about it after negotiating for the firm to take a lower percentage as its fee. They said there’s no evidence he would have received more than $45,000 in his lawsuit over “a run-of-the-mill, low-value automobile accident.”
“While Respondents maintain that they had express authority from Claimant to settle the underlying case, at worst this case is one of miscommunication,” Morgan & Morgan and Aitken wrote.
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