Law Lessons from RYAN KERR, ET AL. V. BERT TRANSMISSIONS, ET AL., App. Div., A-5252-10T2, September 6, 2012:

The United States Supreme Court has held that “[s]urely if a criminal defendant may be convicted because he did not have the presence of mind to repudiate his attorney’s conduct in the course of a trial, a civil plaintiff may be deprived of his claim if he failed to see to it that his lawyer acted with dispatch in the prosecution of his lawsuit.” Link v. Wabash R. Co., 370 U.S. 626, 634 n.10, 82 S. Ct. 1386, 1390 n.10, 8 L. Ed. 2d 734, 740 n.10 (1962); see also Baumann v. Marinaro, 95 N.J. 380, 397 (1984) (discussing the holding in Link that clients are often bound by their counsel’s inaction). The Link Court went on to find that “keeping this suit alive merely because plaintiff should not be penalized for the omissions of his own attorney would be visiting the sins of plaintiff’s lawyer upon the defendant.” Ibid.

NOTE: This Blog/Blawg, NJ Family Issues, is managed by Paul G. Kostro, Esq., an attorney/lawyer/mediator in Linden, Union County, New Jersey.