## Facts

- Ruth and John Boyd mortgaged their home and signed a promissory note to secure a $100,000 criminal-appearance bond for their son.
- The bonding company failed to file an affidavit required by Florida law (the statute provided an absolute defense to a later foreclosure based on the mortgage).
- After the son failed to appear and the bond was forfeited, the bonding company filed a mortgage-foreclosure action against the Boyds.
- The Boyds retained attorney Lin Brett-Major to represent them in the foreclosure action.
- Brett-Major filed an answer, but did not adequately plead the bonding company’s failure to file the affidavit as an affirmative defense.
- The bonding company obtained summary judgment of foreclosure, and the foreclosure judgment was affirmed on appeal in a separate case.
- The Boyds then sued Brett-Major and her malpractice insurer for legal malpractice, alleging that the failure to raise the statutory affidavit defense caused their loss in the foreclosure case.
- In the malpractice action, the Boyds asserted they hired Brett-Major to win the foreclosure case.
- Brett-Major contended the Boyds’ objective was different: they wanted to delay the foreclosure while they raised money to repay the bond, because they wished to keep an ongoing relationship with the bondsmen.
- Brett-Major and the insurer pleaded an affirmative defense that she acted according to the Boyds’ specific instructions after explaining potential defenses.
- Over the Boyds’ objection, the trial court instructed the jury that an attorney is duty-bound to follow a client’s specific instructions so long as criminal or fraudulent ends are not intended.
- The jury returned a verdict for Brett-Major and the insurer, and judgment was entered on that verdict.
- The Boyds appealed, challenging the legal validity of the “specific client instructions” defense and the related jury instruction (not the sufficiency of the evidence supporting submission of the issue to the jury).

## Issues

1. In a legal malpractice action, may an attorney avoid liability by proving she followed the specific, lawful instructions of a well-advised client, even if the chosen approach forgoes a potentially winning defense?
2. Did the trial court err by instructing the jury that an attorney must carry out a client’s specific instructions (absent criminal or fraudulent ends), thereby permitting a verdict for the attorney on that theory?

## Decision

- The Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment entered on the defense verdict.
- The court approved the “specific instructions” theory as a legally permissible affirmative defense in a malpractice case when the client is adequately advised and the instructions are lawful.
- The court held the challenged jury instruction correctly stated the law and was not reversible error.

## Legal Principles

- A lawyer’s duty in civil representation includes explaining available lawful alternatives and the likely consequences so the client can make an informed choice.
- The client, not the lawyer, has final authority over lawful objectives and over major choices once the client has been advised.
- An attorney generally is not negligent for implementing a client’s informed, specific, lawful instructions, even if a different strategy might have produced a better outcome.
- The “specific instructions” defense does not protect conduct directed toward criminal or fraudulent ends.
- When the defense is pleaded and the case presents a fact dispute about what the client instructed and what the lawyer was hired to accomplish, the jury may be instructed that following the client’s specific, lawful instructions can defeat malpractice liability.

## Conclusion

Boyd v. Brett-Major affirmed a defense verdict in a legal malpractice case where the attorney contended she was hired to delay foreclosure (not to defeat it) and acted according to her clients’ stated, lawful instructions after advising them; the appellate court held that this client-directed course-of-representation theory is a valid defense and that the related jury instruction was proper.


Boyd v. Brett-Major, 449 So.2d 952 (1984)