Reference no: EM133267925

Question: Bart works feverishly for Arnold, who has a busy litigation practice, but Arnold recently tried to foray into some appellate work. A client Arnold represented in a divorce a few years ago came to Arnold because the client had been denied a promotion at the state department of transportation. From the interview, Arnold believed that he needed to appeal the transportation board's decision by bringing an action in the venue-appropriate trial court, as was the case for many administrative decisions. What he didn't realize was that when the department of transportation made a hiring decision for the position level. ­

Arnold's client had applied; the required appeal was to the court of appeals. So, after Arnold had Bart file the required pleadings, the time for correctly filing the appeal passed, and Arnold's client found himself without recourse. Panic struck Arnold after realizing his error, and he called the client to come to the office for a face-to-face Mea culpa. When the client arrived, he began by telling Arnold how losing that promotion was the best thing to happen to him, because it caused him to look elsewhere for similar employment, which he found at an engineering company that is paying him more than he would have made had he gotten the promotion.

Relieved by this serendipity, Arnold told the client what happened, but blamed Bart for the error, telling the client that Bart had been so overworked, he wasn't paying attention to details like he used to. Following the client meeting, Arnold told Bart that Bart was blamed for incorrectly filing the appeal. Arnold's theory was that the bad news, which became a moot point anyway, would go down better if a paralegal were blamed for it. Arnold then chuckled and said, "Don't worry about it. The guy loves his new job and didn't seem to care too much once I told him I wasn't going to bill him for any work done on the matter." What can Bart do? Should he do anything?