## Facts

- Robert Cleveland, an Illinois attorney, had a longstanding tax dispute with the IRS that allegedly led to severe financial hardship and depression.
- Cleveland’s therapist warned the IRS in writing that Cleveland was suicidal.
- In 1996, Cleveland retained attorney Michael Rotman for tax representation; the therapist informed Rotman of Cleveland’s poor finances, severe depression, and suicidal tendencies.
- Rotman advised Cleveland to file estimated tax returns; the estate alleged this advice prompted the IRS to initiate a proposed 1998 audit.
- The therapist obtained a postponement of the audit, but Cleveland later committed suicide in 1998 shortly before the rescheduled audit date.
- Rose Cleveland, individually and as executrix, sued Rotman for legal malpractice in contract and tort, alleging Rotman’s negligent advice set in motion events that culminated in Cleveland’s suicide.

## Issues

1. Whether the complaint plausibly alleged proximate causation for legal malpractice under Illinois law when the claimed injury was the client’s suicide.
2. Whether suicide, on the pleaded facts, constituted an independent intervening act that severed any causal link between the attorney’s alleged negligence and the death.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed the Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal of the malpractice claims against Rotman.
- The court held that Cleveland’s suicide was an independent intervening event that broke the chain of causation from any alleged malpractice to the death.
- Even accepting as true that Rotman knew of Cleveland’s depression and suicidal tendencies and that the advice contributed to the audit notice, the complaint did not state a legally sufficient basis to attribute the suicide to Rotman as proximate cause.

## Legal Principles

- Under Illinois law, a legal-malpractice plaintiff must plead and prove proximate cause (cause in fact and legal cause) linking the attorney’s breach to the claimed injury.
- An intervening, superseding event can defeat proximate cause as a matter of law.
- Suicide is generally treated as an independent intervening act that severs causation, absent special circumstances creating a duty to prevent self-harm (such as certain custodial or protective relationships).
- A defendant’s awareness of a person’s suicidal ideation, without a special duty to prevent self-harm, does not by itself make suicide a legally attributable consequence for purposes of malpractice proximate cause.
- On a Rule 12(b)(6) motion, courts accept well-pleaded facts as true and draw reasonable inferences for the plaintiff, but dismissal is proper where no set of consistent facts would establish a legally sufficient causal connection.

## Conclusion

The court held that, as pleaded, the attorney’s alleged negligent tax advice could not support malpractice damages for the client’s death because the client’s suicide was an independent intervening act that eliminated proximate cause under Illinois law.


Cleveland v. Rotman, 297 F.3d 569 (7th Cir. 2002)