Law Partner Added As A Judgment Debtor After Multi-Million-Dollar Verdict Against Firm.

After practicing law together for 14 years, two lawyers parted. One of the lawyers sued the other as well as their former firm. The issue, of course, was money. The trial court granted a directed verdict in favor of the individual lawyer defendant. A jury returned a multi-million-dollar verdict. Thereafter, the plaintiff filed a motion to amend the judgment to include the individual lawyer defendant as a judgment debtor, arguing: “The jury found that, when he terminated [plaintiff], [the individual lawyer defendant] knew that the firm owed [plaintiff] more than $2 million. Nonetheless, at every opportunity [the individual lawyer defendant] drew out as personal distributions all the firm’s available funds without reserving any amounts to satisfy the debt he knew was owed to [plaintiff]. When [the individual lawyer defendant] reached the limits on the checks he could write to himself, [the individual lawyer defendant] began writing checks to others for his personal benefit, dropping the pretense that the sums were earned as ‘salary.’ Thus, in a concerted effort to wring from the firm every last dollar, he wrote firm checks to others to: build and furnish for him and his wife a luxury ranch in Idaho; buy expensive vintage cars here and abroad in furtherance of his racing hobby; buy fine wine, entertainment systems, and clothes; pay taxes and insurance on his home in San Francisco; fly around on private jets, take ski vacations, and travel to rugby matches; pay for vacations and shopping sprees for his current spouse; and fund his personal trust, and retirement accounts, and pay the living expenses of various family members. By the time of the verdict, [the individual lawyer defendant] had largely gutted the firm.”  The appellate court stated: “The sole issue presented is whether the trial court here abused its discretion by amending a judgment against a dissolving law firm by adding a former name partner of that firm as an additional judgment debtor. We conclude not.” The appellate court’s reasoning included a discussion of the original Field Code provisions enacted in 1872; the court stated that buried in the opaque language of the 1872’s Code of Civil Procedure section 187 “is the power of a trial court to amend a judgment by adding judgment debtors.”(Danko v. O’Reilly (Cal. App. Second Dist., Div. 5; December 18, 2014) 232 Cal.App.4th 732, [181 Cal.Rptr.3d 304].)