Lawyers Bungled Couple’s Suit, Jury Finds

A Superior Court jury has awarded an Acton couple $8.1 million in a legal malpractice case, agreeing with the plaintiffs that the young lawyers they hired after their 5-year-old son was killed in a horseback riding accident had botched a wrongful-death suit.

The three defendants, two of whom were recent law school graduates when retained eight years ago, plan to appeal the verdict, considered unusual because most legal malpractice cases are settled out of court.

“What this jury has taught me is that people don’t like attorneys,” said David Ganezer, one of the defendants. He and his brother Elliot owe $4 million each, while an associate, Timothy E. Meyer, owes $100,000.

The plaintiffs, Robert and Taryl Garland, expressed mostly relief at finally prevailing in a case they had pursued in their grief.

“My husband and I have our emotions in check. But now it’s done and we don’t have to go through it again,” Taryl Garland said Thursday.

The ordeal began Oct. 15, 1989, when young Ryan Garland was riding behind his father on a shared horse rented from Wallace Ranch near Lake View Terrace. When they reached a remote trail in Dexter Park’s Kagel Canyon, the horse threw them off.

Ryan’s head hit the ground and he died in his father’s arms, according to Paul White, one of the Garlands’ malpractice attorneys. The Garlands contended in their earlier lawsuit that ranch personnel had given the pair a saddle that was too big and improperly cinched, causing the accident.

But they lost the case in San Fernando Superior Court in 1994, when a jury decided 12-0 that no one at the ranch could be blamed for the tragedy.

A friend had recommended the Ganezers, Taryl Garland recalled Thursday, and she had trusted their legal expertise since bringing them the case in late 1989. (Meyer joined the team in 1991 as a trial lawyer.)

“When [attorneys] say, ‘Sit back and let us do our job,’ you do it,” she said. “You don’t question them. That would be like going into surgery and questioning the way a doctor was working on you. That has been a big lesson for us.”

White and the Garlands’ other malpractice lawyer, John Fletcher, painted the defendants as greenhorns who, in White’s words, “got in over their heads.”

“The hallmark of every good trial attorney is prepare, prepare, prepare,” Fletcher said. “And they went to the jury on a song and a prayer, talking about how much sympathy the jury [in the first trial] would have for the victims. . . . And the other guy whupped ‘em.”

The defendants denied they had taken the initial case lightly and said they would appeal the Sept. 29 verdict. A hearing has been set for Nov. 4, when a judge could nullify the entire award, Meyer said.

The judgment “will be overturned,” David Ganezer said. “You can bank on it.” His brother Elliot could not be reached. The pair, who still practice in Santa Monica, represented themselves in court.

Meyer, who had an attorney, has tried to distance himself from the Ganezers, who were characterized in the trial as recent law school graduates whose television--advertised practice was built on personal-injury claims.

“Will my punishment never end?” Meyer asked Thursday from his Beverly Hills office. “I was brought in as a pinch hitter to try this case.”

The Garlands’ new lawyers plan to cite Meyer’s professional insurance policy at the hearing in seeking to raise the amount Meyer must pay. Fletcher said they have all but given up on collecting the full amount from the Ganezers because the brothers are not worth nearly the millions awarded by the jury.

But because the plaintiffs in a legal malpractice suit must prove they would have won the original case, the Garlands and their attorneys say they consider any monetary judgment a vindication.

The obituary the Garlands composed for Ryan had vowed, “We will see him again.”

For now, they said Thursday, they have at least seen their former attorneys again--in court.