Husch Blackwell Faces Malpractice Suit Over Mistaken Injunction Lift Request in CIT
Husch Blackwell and one of its international trade partners, Jeffrey Neeley, committed legal malpractice when they went too far in a filing at the Court of International Trade subjecting imports of wood furniture to antidumping duties, Wego Chemical Group said in an Aug. 9 complaint at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. A motion filed by Neeley mistakenly requesting an injunction be lifted on all entries subject to an antidumping duty period led to Wego needlessly paying over $325,000 in customs duties, the company said (Wego Chemical Group Inc. v. Husch Blackwell LLP et al., S.D.N.Y. #21-06689).
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Wego, represented by Neeley and Husch Blackwell, was subject to an injunction on wood flooring imports issued in the CIT case Fine Furniture (Shanghai) Limited v. United States, CIT #16-00145. Wego instructed its counsel to move to lift the injunction on 24 specific wood flooring entries and to seek liquidation for the entries. Unbeknownst to Wego, Neeley went ahead and moved for a lift of the liquidation for all the importer's entries for the entire antidumping period covering December 2013 through November 2014.
The importer only found out about this mishap when the CIT lifted the injunction against all of its entries for the period, resulting in the liquidation of all of its entries and a bill for $325,133.25 in customs payments. Neeley moved for reconsideration of this decision to no avail. The court then issued its judgment in the case, in which it determined that deposits made by Wego would have been subject to a 0% duty rate.
"The legal care, advice and services rendered by defendants to plaintiff were rendered carelessly, unskillfully, negligently and not in accordance with accepted standards of legal care, advice and services in the community," the complaint said. Wego is requesting refunds of the duties paid for Neeley's alleged negligence and is also demanding a trial by jury in the malpractice case. Neeley did not immediately respond to a request for comment.