Minnesota Litigator recently covered the U.S. District Court (D. Minn., Frank, J.) denial of law firm defendant’s motion to dismiss in a case of alleged professional malpractice, highlighting the Court’s strong disapproval of the moving party’s tone (Minnesota Litigator also covered the earlier dismissal of plaintiffs’ case with leave to amend) in the case of Rockwood Retaining Walls, Inc. et al. against the law firm of Patterson Thuente Skaar & Christenson, P.A.
Now, invoking a 1949 U.S. Supreme Court case, the law firm’s law firm (Kay Nord Hunt of Lommen Abdo Cole King & Stageberg, P.A.) is characterizing the denial of the motion to dismiss as a “final decision” and seeking to take the case up on appeal right away.
Without taking the time to conduct the legal research, Minnesota Litigator is in no position to handicap the odds of being able to get what looks superficially like a low-chance-of-success “interlocutory appeal” (that is, an appeal in the absence of a final judgment). But if there is a reasonable prospect of immediate appeal, this would be an important, perhaps critical, arrow in the quiver of professional malpractice defense in Minnesota.