Can You Sue a Lawyer for Emotional Distress?

Malpractice law treats most attorney-client relationships as economic ones. You hired a lawyer to protect a financial interest (a personal injury claim, a business deal, an inheritance), and if the lawyer's negligence cost you that interest, the law tries to put you back where you would have been financially. Courts reason that emotional upset is a side effect of that loss, and that paying you the money you lost is the full remedy.

Courts across the country have said so directly:

In Douglas v. Delp (1999), the Texas Supreme Court held that when a plaintiff's mental anguish is a consequence of economic losses caused by an attorney's negligence, the plaintiff may not recover damages for that mental anguish. In that case, a client described stress and depression that required medical care and caused physical symptoms, and the court still applied the rule because the underlying harm was financial.

California reached the same place in Merenda. The client's lawyers were handling her claim for damages against a former employer she said had sexually assaulted her, and their handling of the claim in the employer's bankruptcy allegedly cost her the recovery. The Court of Appeal held she could not recover for her emotional distress, observing that where the client's interest is economic, serious emotional distress is not an inevitable consequence of the loss of money.

The strongest exception is a criminal case in which a lawyer's negligence leads to a client being wrongly locked up. The Restatement (Third) of the Law Governing Lawyers, as quoted by the Washington Supreme Court, says emotional distress damages are ordinarily not recoverable when a lawyer's misconduct costs a client profits in a commercial transaction, but are ordinarily recoverable when misconduct causes the client's imprisonment.

In Holliday v. Jones (1989), a California Court of Appeal upheld a $400,000 emotional distress award to a client whose involuntary manslaughter conviction was reversed and who was acquitted at retrial with new counsel. The court struck a separate $300,000 in awards to his children, finding the lawyer owed them no duty.

Florida recognized a narrow version of this exception in Rowell v. Holt (2003). The client had been wrongfully held in pretrial detention and gave his lawyer the document that would have secured his immediate release, but the lawyer did not deliver it to the judge. The Florida Supreme Court allowed noneconomic damages for the resulting psychological harm despite Florida's "impact rule," which normally bars emotional distress claims without a physical impact.

Two cautions. First, criminal malpractice claims have their own hurdles: most states require the client to be exonerated first, and some require proof of actual innocence. California added that requirement after Holliday. See ineffective assistance vs. legal malpractice. Second, a similar exception has been applied outside criminal cases. According to a Massachusetts law firm's summary of the case, in Wagenmann v. Adams (1st Cir. 1987) a federal appeals court upheld emotional distress damages for a man involuntarily committed to a mental hospital because of his attorney's nonfeasance.

Some states look beyond loss of liberty and ask whether serious emotional harm was foreseeable, either because of how the lawyer behaved or because of what the case was about.

The Washington Supreme Court took that approach in Schmidt v. Coogan (2014). The lead opinion in Schmidt v. Coogan held that a legal malpractice plaintiff may recover emotional distress damages when significant emotional distress is foreseeable from the sensitive or personal nature of the representation or when the attorney's conduct is particularly egregious, but that simple malpractice causing pecuniary loss does not support them. The opinion described this as following a national trend of allowing these damages when an attorney's actions are particularly egregious and the harm is both great and foreseeable.

The facts of Schmidt show where the line falls. The lawyer filed a slip-and-fall suit days before the limitations period ran, named the wrong defendant, and the case was dismissed as time-barred. The client later alleged he had harassed and belittled her when she raised the limitations issue. The court still held she was not entitled to emotional distress damages, because a slip-and-fall claim is not a sensitive or personal matter and the lawyer's conduct was not particularly egregious.

A 2024 unpublished Washington Court of Appeals decision, Echols v. Lee, applied the same test to a bankruptcy case and affirmed dismissal of emotional distress damages, because a dispute over real property and mortgages was not sensitive or personal and there was no evidence of egregious or intentional conduct.

Most of the cases above involve negligence: a lawyer who was careless. When a lawyer acts intentionally, such as lying to cover up a mistake, stealing client money, or deliberately working against the client, the analysis can change. Courts adopting the Schmidt approach expressly include "intentional" conduct as a trigger, and claims for fraud or intentional infliction of emotional distress have their own rules about damages that differ from ordinary negligence.

That is why the type of claim matters. A lawyer who carelessly missed a deadline and a lawyer who lied to you for a year about a case they knew was dismissed may cause the same financial loss, but the second fact pattern may support additional claims. See my lawyer lied to me and breach of fiduciary duty.

Some intentional conduct can also support punitive damages under a state's general rules, which are separate from emotional distress damages and are meant to punish rather than compensate. Whether they are available depends heavily on state law and the facts.

Being told emotional distress is off the table can feel like being told your case is worthless. It usually is not. The core of a malpractice case is the economic value of what you lost, proven through the case within a case.

• The value of the lost claim, such as the settlement or verdict you would have obtained, subject to collectibility in many states.
• Extra costs the mistake caused, such as fees paid to a new lawyer to fix it.

The Schmidt case also shows how much turns on this question. According to the Washington Supreme Court's opinion, the jury in the first malpractice trial in 2003 awarded $32,000 for past economic damage and $180,000 for noneconomic damages. The trial court ordered a new trial on damages, and after years of further litigation the Supreme Court held that emotional distress damages were not available on those facts. By then the fight was not about whether the lawyer had been negligent. It was about which kinds of harm the law would pay for, and the answer limited her recovery to the economic side of the ledger. That is the typical pattern in these cases, and it is why a lawyer evaluating your claim will focus first on the dollars the mistake cost you.

Even in states that bar emotional distress damages for ordinary malpractice, a client can still recover the provable economic value of the case or transaction the lawyer's negligence cost them. For how these numbers are built, see how much a legal malpractice case is worth.

Ask three questions:

1. What did the mistake cost you? If the answer is money or a lost claim, emotional distress damages are unlikely in most states, but the economic claim may be strong.
2. Did it cost you your liberty, your child, or something similarly personal? If so, you are in the territory where some courts allow emotional distress damages.
3. Was the lawyer's conduct intentional or egregious? Lies, cover-ups, and abuse can change the damages picture in some states.

Document the emotional impact anyway: medical or counseling records, dates, and how the lawyer's conduct affected you. Whether it is recoverable is a question for a lawyer in your state, and state rules differ; check your state's page for the local rules.

If a lawyer's mistake cost you a case, money, or your freedom, a free case review takes about two minutes and can connect you with an independent attorney in your state who handles legal malpractice claims.