Arizona Court Tosses Legal Malpractice Suit Due to Suicide Rule

An Arizona appeals court dismissed a legal malpractice suit against two law firms brought by the parents of a woman who killed herself.

The court cited the suicide rule as the reason for its ruling, but urged the state supreme court to revisit “the aging majority rule” because it’s “primitive and unduly inflexible,” the Dec. 5 ruling said.

The rule says that suicide is always an unforeseeable intervening cause of death so that another person can’t be found liable for it, the Arizona Court of Appeals said.

The parents couldn’t have succeeded in their wrongful death action had they filed ...