## Facts

- Rosemary Miles died in 1973, leaving a will that provided a marital-deduction share to her husband, Maurice E. Miles, with the remainder placed in a testamentary trust for her son and his family.
- Miles served as executor and retained attorney Floyd R. King to advise and represent him in administering and closing the estate.
- The probate court approved an accounting and entered a decree of distribution in 1979; the estate was closed later that year.
- In 1986, the trust beneficiaries sued Miles for breach of fiduciary duties as executor.
- Miles brought a third-party legal-malpractice action against King asserting negligence, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty; Miles later settled with the beneficiaries and continued pursuing claims against King.
- A jury found King liable and allocated “fault” as 35% to Miles, 35% to King, and 30% to Jackson State Bank (a nonparty to the malpractice action).
- The trial court applied Wyoming’s comparative negligence statute to the allocation and denied any recovery.
- On appeal in federal court, the Tenth Circuit certified state-law questions to the Wyoming Supreme Court about whether comparative negligence barred or reduced recovery on the contract and fiduciary-duty theories.

## Issues

1. Whether Wyoming’s comparative negligence statute, Wyo. Stat. § 1-1-109(a), bars recovery in a legal-malpractice action on breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty theories when the jury allocates 35% fault to the plaintiff, 35% to the defendant attorney, and 30% to a third party.
2. If the statute does not bar recovery on those theories, whether Wyoming law nevertheless requires reduction of recovery by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault.

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court answered both certified questions “no.”
- The comparative negligence statute does not bar recovery on legal-malpractice claims based on breach of contract or breach of fiduciary duty, notwithstanding the jury’s allocation of fault.
- Neither the statute nor any other Wyoming legal rule required reducing recovery on those non-negligence theories by the plaintiff’s percentage of fault.

## Legal Principles

- Wyo. Stat. § 1-1-109(a) applies to actions seeking damages for negligence and is limited to negligence claims within its statutory terms.
- The statute does not extend to causes of action based on breach of contract or breach of fiduciary duty, even when the underlying conduct involves professional error.
- Absent statutory authority or a recognized doctrine, Wyoming courts will not import comparative-fault reduction into contract or fiduciary-duty claims.

## Conclusion

Wyoming’s comparative negligence statute governs negligence actions and does not operate to bar or proportionally reduce recovery on legal-malpractice claims pleaded as breach of contract or breach of fiduciary duty, even when a jury assigns a percentage of “fault” to the plaintiff.


Jackson State Bank v. King, 844 P.2d 1093 (Wyo. 1993)