Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / February 2006

http://www.adoption.com/includes/frame.php?url=http://www.belleville.com/mld/bel
leville/news/state/13878299.htm

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - A woman who changed her mind about giving her baby
up for adoption has been awarded $3 million after jurors found that she
lost custody because of an attorney's mistaken advice.
Jurors in Jackson County Circuit Court decided Tuesday that the
attorney and his law firm breached their fiduciary duty to Chandrika
Collins, 32, of Kirksville.
When Collins agreed to let a Pennsylvania couple adopt her son in 1995,
she believed Kansas City attorney Sanford Krigel represented her,
according to testimony in the case. Actually, he was representing the
adoptive parents.
Collins later changed her mind. But because she thought she had more
time to back out, the adoption process wasn't stopped in time. Collins
went more than four years without seeing the boy while she tried to
have the adoption set aside, said her attorney, Robert Langdon.
Langdon, who came into the case later to try the lawsuit decided
Tuesday after a seven-day trial, said eventually the interests of the
child who had spent all his life with the adoptive parents became
paramount.
He said that as the dispute over the validity of the adoption was
nearing trial the parties reached a settlement under which Collins got
visitation rights to see the boy one weekend a month, with additional
time during the summer. He said the adoptive parents do not allow him
to come to Missouri for the visits, so Collins goes to the Philadelphia
area to

see him.
Langdon said Collins and the boy's natural father subsequently married
and had another son but were divorced about a year ago. He said Collins
is still struggling to build a relationship with her first-born son.
"This adoption, it could have been stopped," Langdon said.
During the trial, Krigel disputed the assertion that he represented
Collins, saying he spoke to her for a few minutes on the telephone and
forwarded the case to another lawyer.
But Collins contended that Krigel told her she could back out anytime
before the adoption was final. In fact, her chance to stop the adoption
ended before the adoptive couple left with her baby - when her signed
legal consent was approved.
James Ensz, attorney for Krigel, said his client would appeal.

In closing arguments, Ensz told jurors Krigel would never have given
mistaken advice on the deadline.
"That would be like a mathematician saying 2 plus 2 is 5," he said.
Langdon said he hoped lawyers and adoption agencies would learn from
the case and get separate representation.
"This young lady had her baby stolen from her by the legal system, and
this jury just wasn't going to let that happen," Langdon said.
The practice of having lawyers represent the birth mother as well as
the adoptive parents is common, said Adam Pertman, director of the Evan
Donaldson Adoption Institute in New York, an adoption advocacy group.
He said Collins' case shows what can happen in such an arrangement.
"It raises the question of where is (the lawyer's) heart," he said.
"Typically it's the adoptive parents who pay the bill."
Before the trial, undisclosed settlements were reached with several
other lawyers involved in the case. Those settlements will be
subtracted from the $3 million verdict.

Kathy