Legal Question in Construction Law in California

Lesson learned: Don't use other people's lawyers. Hire your own lawyer. The lawyer who claimed to represent you, without your having given him authority to do so, was in the wrong and could possibly be sued or reported to the state bar.

Actually your situation isn't as dire as it may seem. If the original contractor abandoned the project, which it sounds pretty clear he did having not only failed to perform but also ignored the demand from your architect, you had every right to terminate the contract. Terminating the contract does not waive your rights against the orginal contractor, except the right to specific performance of the contract. The original contractor is still subject to discipline by the CSLB, and he is still liable to you for breach of the contract. That means he is obligated to pay all amounts over and above your contract price with him that you have to pay to have the work completed. You owe him only the reasonable value of work he did before abandoning the project, which you probably have over-paid already.

So you really don't need to get into a dispute over whether or not the termination was authorized. If it becomes an issue, however, it gets very complicated. There is a lot of conflicting law on whether and under what circumstances an attorney's unauthorized action is still binding on the party they claim to be representing. In this case, since the original contractor did not change his position in any way, having already abandoned the job, he is hard pressed to claim any detremental reliance on the attorney's apparent authority. In addition, you did nothing to cloak the attorney with authority. So there is a good shot that if for some reason this had to be litigated you would be able to rescind the termination.

And on top of that you have a malpractice action against the other attorney. You don't have to retain an attorney in order for their conduct to be the subject of a malpractice action. You should also report them to the State Bar.

If you would like to discuss this further, please feel free to give me a call. I have almost 25 years of construction law experience, including serving as Construction Counsel in the S.F. International Airport General Counsel's Office. I'm happy to talk about your situation at no charge, and should things deteriorate to where you need to retain counsel, I maintain offices in Carlsbad and currently have several active cases in Orange County.