Miscellaneous Professional Liability Claims Examples

A systems procurement consultant does not adequately understand the system needs of a particular client. When the system recommended by the consultant is installed it does not work as the client expected, resulting in significant operational disruption and financial loss to the client. The client concludes that the system must be scrapped. Not only is the client out the cost of the system, but the client may also lose business due to disruptions in servicing customers. The resulting lawsuit is the result of an adversarial conclusion to the work performed, making any kind of resolution impossible. Even though the cost of the system is not large, the financial impact on the client goes far beyond the system itself. An expert has concluded that the client lost business greater than twenty times the cost of the system due to the disruptions caused by the inadequate system.

Both an expert witness and a litigation support services firm purchased miscellaneous professional liability insurance. A plaintiffs attorney retained the litigation support services firm to assist him in finding an expert on off-road motorcycles because he was representing an individual injured in an off-road motorcycling accident. The expert identified by the litigation support services firm assisted the lawyer in finding the expert, who then issued an opinion that the motorcycle’s brakes were defective. Relying on the expert’s opinion, the lawyer continued preparing the case for trial. The expert later realized that he had examined the wrong set of brakes and changed his opinion, thus ruining the personal injury case and causing the attorney to incur significant unnecessary time and expense in the case. The lawyer filed suit against the litigation support firm and the expert alleging that they negligently misrepresented the expert’s credentials. The case was settled by payment of over $20,000 to the lawyer.