Posts in category: Litigation Attorney

Fiduciary duty, which is also referred to as fiduciary responsibility, refers to the legal relationships between a fiduciary and a beneficiary. The fiduciary acts on behalf of the beneficiary or principal concerning a wide variety of possible legal matters. The appointed fiduciary assumes legal responsibility for acting in good faith and with loyalty to the beneficiary. When a fiduciary fails to act in good faith while remaining loyal to the beneficiary, the fiduciary has violated the duty of care doctrine.

If you believe a fiduciary appointed to act on your behalf has violated the duty of care legal doctrine, you should contact an attorney who specializes in business and commercial law to review the facts of your case.

How Can Someone Break Fiduciary Responsibility?

Fiduciary responsibilities cover a wide variety of legal issues. The following three breaches of fiduciary duties represent some of the most common types of breaches.

Agent and Principal

An agent is anyone who assumes responsibility to act on another person’s behalf. The agent has a fiduciary duty to protect the interests of the principal by never acting contrary to the principal’s stated interests. One of the most common types of agent and principal relationships concerns the legal relationship between an employee and employer. Breaches of fiduciary duty committed by an employee include sharing employer trade secrets, abusing employer funds or failing to account for using employer funds, and acting on behalf of a competitor to damage the reputation of the employer.

Business Partners

Business partners assume a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interests of every other partner, as well as the company. One of the most common breaches of fiduciary duty committed by a partner concern mismanaging company funds or failing to account for spending company funds. A partner who exposes other partners and the company to liability by committing one or more acts of negligence has breached the partner’s fiduciary duty. Failing to disclose a conflict of interest, concealing critically important business information from the other partners, and damaging the goodwill of the partnership by conducting illegal acts also represent examples of a partner’s breach of fiduciary responsibility.

Board of Directors

Every corporation is led by a group called the board of directors that makes decisions on behalf of the corporation. Since the corporation’s shareholders elect each member of the board of directors, each board member owes the shareholders a duty of care to make business decisions in the best interest of the shareholders. One common example of a board of directors breaching its fiduciary duties involves preventing shareholders from exercising their legal right to vote on important business matters. Denying shareholders access to business records also violates the duty of care doctrine for fiduciary responsibility. Refusing to pay dividends and committing illegal acts to force out minority shareholders also represent breaches of fiduciary duty.

What Are the Remedies When Someone Breaches Fiduciary Responsibility?

Beneficiaries that sustain losses caused by one or more breaches of fiduciary duty can receive three types of damages to recover from financial losses.

Economic Damages

Economic damages represent the tangible costs associated with one party breaching the fiduciary responsibility to act on behalf of another party. For example, a partner who misuses partnership funds might have to pay back the mismanaged money as part of the economic damages awarded by a judge.

Non-Economic Damages

Non-economic damages do not come with a price tag. Instead, this type of financial award covers the costs associated with mental and emotional anguish issues. Proving a beneficiary suffered from mental and emotional anguish caused by a breach of fiduciary responsibility can be more difficult to do than proving the financial losses caused by economic damages.

Punitive Damages

Judges do not award punitive damages to help plaintiffs pay for economic or non-economic damages. Punitive damages punish a defendant for committing one or more breaches of fiduciary duty. They also deter defendants from committing the same breach or breaches of fiduciary responsibility in the future. For the worst cases of breaching fiduciary duty, a judge can award punitive damages that exceed the combined value of economic and non-economic damages.

Alves Radcliffe, LLP — Business Attorney

If you need assistance with business litigation, call Alves Radcliffe, LLP at 916-333-3375 or send us an email. We have over 25 years of combined experience, and serve clients throughout Greater Sacramento, Northern California, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

What is an Appeal?

An appeal represents the legal process that involves asking an appellate court to review a decision made by a judge during a civil trial. The appellate attorney files an appeal not to initiate another civil trial, but instead, to make the case that the judge who heard the arguments during the civil trial made one or more mistakes concerning the law. One party that files the appeal is called the appellant, while the party that faces an appeal is called the appellee. The court that hears an appeal is called the appellate court or the court of appeals.

You can file an appeal only after your case has established a final ruling, although there are a few exceptions to the rule. The few exceptions include filing an “interlocutory appeal,” which appeals a decision issued by a judge during an ongoing case. Appealing a trial court decision does not stop the decision from going into effect. You must follow the decision issued by the judge who heard your case until your appeal is resolved.

An appeal is not a legal process that allows you to introduce new evidence. The appellate judges hearing an appeal review the record of what transpired during the civil trial.

What Does an Appellate Court Do?

The procedures followed by an appellate court establish the legal foundation for reviewing the decision issued by the judge hearing the original civil lawsuit. For both state and federal jurisdictions, the result of an appeal is considered the final judgment of a civil case unless the appellate court committed a basic judicial error or violated the United States Constitution.

Legal issues surrounding an appeal involve the legal briefs written by the attorneys representing each party. The legal briefs list several questions, as well as present the legal arguments in support of the positions taken by the plaintiff and the defendant. As the plaintiff in an appeal of a lower court’s decision, your appellate attorney files an appeal with a court that is part of the same judicial system in which the initial civil lawsuit received consideration.

Appellate courts follow one of two standards when reviewing what transpired during a civil trial. The abuse of discretion standard requires an appellate court to reverse the decision made by a civil judge only if, in light of the applicable law and considering all the relevant circumstances, the trial court’s decision exceeds the bounds of reason and results in a miscarriage of justice. An appellate court also can discover an abuse of discretion when the civil trial judge issued a decision on a mistaken finding of fact.

If an appellate court applies the “de novo” standard, the appellate court does not defer to the decision issued by the civil trial judge. The appellate court determines the appropriate ruling to issue and applies the ruling as part of the appeal decision. Appellate courts typically follow the De Novo standard when determining issues of law.  Of the two standards, the De Novo standard is considered the best way to appeal a civil verdict because it’s a “brand-new” look at the case.

What Are the Costs Associated with an Appeal?

The cost of an appeal depends on several factors such as the amount of time to review the underlying trial materials, obtaining a trial transcript, the number of issues to appeal from, whether the issues are novel or complex, and the attorney’s time to prepare the appeal and attend oral argument. Ask your appellant lawyer during the case evaluation for a cost estimate for filing an appeal.

Alves Radcliffe, LLP — Appellate Attorney

If you need assistance, call Alves Radcliffe, LLP at 916-333-3375 or send us an email. We have over 25 years of combined experience, and serve clients throughout Greater Sacramento, Northern California, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

An appeal does not represent another trial that introduces additional evidence in front of a different judge. The appeal process typically focuses on disputed issues of law. A panel of appellate judges can affirm the original decision, which means the decision issued by the original judge or verdict issued by the jury stands as the final judgment. Appellate judges can reverse the decision or verdict. Finally, an appellate court may modify the trial court’s decision and send the case back to the trial court to be re-tried in conformance with the appellate judges instructions on an issue. 

Either party involved in a civil dispute can file an appeal based on one or more issues of law. However, the party filing an appeal must have a valid legal reason for an appeal, such as discovering an alleged material error during the original trial.

How Do I Know If I Can File an Appeal?

You have to meet certain requirements to be eligible to file an appeal.  Your attorney must prove a procedural, evidential, or legal application error. The error must have influenced the outcome of the civil trial.  Moreover, your attorney had to object to the error for it to become preserved in the trial court for future reference. An appellate attorney will review the case to determine whether an error negatively impacted the decision made by the judge or jury hearing your case.

The party that appeals the original decision issued by a judge or jury based on an issue of law is called the Appellant and the other party is called the Respondent. Appeals start with the filing of a notice of appeal, which initiates the period an appellant has to file a brief. The Appellant files a written brief. The role of the brief is to address the facts and law that formed the trial court decision and then argue why the decision was incorrect and ultimately requires a different outcome. In response, the Respondent’s attorney can file a Cross-Appeal raising its own issues to appeal from the trial court’s decision and may address the issues put in dispute by the Appellant’s lawyer. 

An appeal can have three possible outcomes.

Confirm the Original Decision

If the appellate court confirms the original decision issued by a civil court judge, the original decision stands. The appellate court affirms the decision issued by the trial court judge.

Reverse the Original Decision

If the appellate court discovers one or more errors that impacted the outcome of the civil trial, the appellate court has the authority to reverse the original decision. 

Modify the Decision and Send the Case Back to the Trial Court

In addition to reversing a civil trial decision, the appellate court also can modify the trial court’s decision and send the case back to the trial court to be re-tried in conformance with the appellate court’s decision. The appellant then may go back to the trial court and re-try the limited issues modified on appeal to try and obtain a different outcome. 

Alves Radcliffe, LLP — Appellate Attorney

If you need assistance with an appeal, call Alves Radcliffe, LLP at 916-333-3375 or send us an email. We have over 25 years of combined experience, and serve clients throughout Greater Sacramento, Northern California, and the San Francisco Bay Area.