Can an attorney who is sued for malpractice by a former client cross-complain for equitable indemnity against a successor attorney who has been hired to extricate the client from the condition created by the predecessor attorney?

Each of these cases, except the last, addresses the issue of whether an attorney who is sued for malpractice by a former client may cross-complain for equitable indemnity against a successor attorney who has been hired to extricate the client from the condition created by the predecessor attorney. The cases hold that for sound public policy reasons, such cross-complaints are prohibited. Those policy reasons were clearly expounded in the dissenting opinion of Justice Morris in Parker v. Morton, supra, 117 Cal.App.3d 751, 173 Cal.Rptr. 197. Justice Morris pointed out that recent cases had uniformly held, for those sound policy reasons, that such a suit is impermissible. The first attorney should have no right of indemnity from the second because: "(1) the threat of such a lawsuit by a client's adversary impinges upon the individual loyalty of the second attorney in advising his client [citation]; (2) one consequence of such a cross-complaint is to preclude the second attorney

Page 621

3. The Case Before the Bench