Kevin Kerveng Tung, PC, et al. v. Janet Yijuan Fou

The Supreme Court of New Jersey denied the Petition for Certification from decisions of the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey, which had affirmed the decisions of trial court denying the motion to vacate the judgment. In the history of American Jurisprudence, this case is likely the first instance where an astronomic attorney fee award in the amount of $1,311,832.94, more than 1,300 times the $1,000 fee received by the Petitioner, was compounded with attorney fees in a legal malpractice case of an uncontested divorce case involving a mere $1,000 in legal fees, where the elements of causation and damage were never established by the Plaintiff. Five questions are presented:

1. Whether a plaintiff in a legal malpractice action can manufacture damages merely by commencing litigation and incurring attorney fees as her sole damages, without proving any underlying substantive loss in the alleged malpractice case.

2. Whether, in a legal-malpractice action arising from an uncontested divorce matter, an attorney's fee award of $1,311,832.94 may be affirmed as recoverable damages where the Appellate Division found that the Plaintiff sustained no financial damages in the underlying uncontested divorce malpractice case other than subsequent legal fees incurred in later proceedings, to vacate an uncontested divorce judgment and the legal fees incurred by plaintiff for subsequent contested divorce action, notwithstanding New Jersey's rule that malpractice damages are compensatory and may include only losses proximately caused by the alleged malpractice.

3. Whether affirmance of an attorney's fee award of $1,311,832.94 under these circumstances violates the due process protections secured by the Fourteenth Amendment and by Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, where Petitioner contends the award operates as a non-compensatory deprivation of liberty and property interests untethered to proven loss.

4. Whether, in reviewing the constitutionality of such an attorney’s-fee award, a court may treat the dismissal of related attorney-disciplinary grievances as irrelevant to the fairness and reliability of imposing a seven-figure fee judgment based on the attorney’s handling of the underlying uncontested divorce case.

5. Whether the Supreme Court of New Jersey's denial of certification warrants review where Petitioner contends the decision below presents issues of general public importance and calls for the Court's supervisory intervention, including the proper application of New Jersey's limited exceptions to the American Rule in attorney-malpractice matters and the constitutional constraints on extraordinary fee awards.