Four-Year Lawsuit and a Lawyer Who Never Prepared the Hearing

Four-Year Lawsuit and a Lawyer Who Never Prepared the Hearing

The fall occurred in September 2020, in a beach shower, and the trial was lost four years later. It was not due to lack of evidence: there were photographs, a forensic report certifying that the injury was consistent with the blow, and witnesses who admitted the poor state of the boards. It was, according to the claimant's account, because the lawyer handling the case did not speak with the witness, did not request the report on the shower repair, and called him the eve of the hearing. His 41-year-old vvife has accumulated surgeries and a knee prosthesis; the court dismissed the claim due to a lack of causal link between the injury and the municipal activity.

The story begins with a beach umbrella and a warning. The man was placing deck chairs twenty meters from the showers when a swimmer warned him that his vvife had fallen. Lifeguards arrived, then an ambulance, and from there to the health center and the hospital, saturated by elbichito, where they extracted several vials of fluid from her knee. Four years later, consultations and rehabilitation continue.

The Police Report That Never Appeared

With the injury confirmed, the family claimed patrimonial liability against the town hall. The requests for reconsideration clashed with the municipal legal department, which exempted the administration from all blame. The shower boards were repaired a few weeks after the accident, a detail the claimant considers key to proving the prior poor condition.

According to his version, the interaction with municipal services was hostile from day one: they did not provide the police report despite him requesting it twice with a digital certificate, and the official in charge of beach operations stopped replying to his emails when she learned of the case's severity. The deck chair workers, he claims, did acknowledge in writing that more falls had already occurred at that spot.

Why the Expedited Procedure Limited the Claim

The claim was processed through the expedited administrative litigation route, reserved for amounts under 30,000 euros. In this type of procedure, those familiar with the subject note, the administration starts with a procedural advantage. The ordinary route, before other bodies and with more margin to practice evidence, would have been the alternative several participants consider correct for a case with permanent injuries and pending surgeries.

The claimant estimates he spent more than 2,000 euros on fees, expert witnesses, and attorneys, and calculates that the compensation could have been around 60,000. The claim was filed one year after the fall, when two surgical interventions were still pending, and the expansion of the forensic expert assessment requested on the day of the hearing to evaluate the prosthesis was dismissed by the judge.

A Lawyer Who Does Not Call, Does Not Summons Witnesses, and Does Not Request Evidence

The first lawyer, hired through a legal insurance service, collected fees and promised a viable case. In the Christmas holidays of 2023, upon visiting him in person, he communicated that the matter was passed to another lawyer from a different firm. From then on, a list of omissions: nine months without preparing the hearing, a call the day before the trial, no conversation with the witness to clarify his statement, no summons to appear, and no request for the repair work report on the shower.

The judgment took a week to be communicated. The eve before, a reassuring message: everything had gone well. Afterward, silence and blocking of calls and messages when he requested the recording of the hearing, to which the client has a right. Some suspect the lawyer belonged to the same municipality as the sued town hall, a textbook error according to several participants: in a lawsuit against the local administration, lawyers all know each other.

Can You Claim Against the Law Firm's Insurance for Negligence?

Yes, but through a narrow path and with a running clock. The procedure involves filing a complaint with the bar association's ethics commission and explicitly requesting that this complaint be notified to the firm's professional liability insurer. The deadlines to appeal the judgment and to denounce possible professional disloyalty are different, and those who let them pass end up with nothing.

The most repeated warning is the difficulty of proving intent. Omissions and neglect are not crimes in themselves, and bar associations, several experiences agree, tend to close ranks with the member. Hence the insistence on assembling a complete file, the trial recording, and documentary proof of each failed management before making a move.

What the Bar Association Can and Cannot Do

The bar association processes the ethics complaint, but is prohibited from recommending specific firms, according to one of the most repeated corrections. What can be requested is the list of firms specialized in the subject, without that equating to an endorsement. The majority opinion discourages legal insurance for serious matters: they are suitable for administrative paperwork, not for lawsuits with expert witnesses and testimonies.

The other lesson that runs through the case is one of the market: the quality of defense is proportional to what is paid. A high percentage on a large settlement moves a firm more than a fixed fee charged regardless of winning or losing.

With the file in hand and deadlines alive, the claim against the lawyer has a path, although no one bets on a quick resolution. If the ethics commission and the insurer ultimately side with the client, the matter will still take years to close.