The issue is fairly basic in terms of the lawsuit. If you sue a state entity, you file in a specific court, the Court of Claims, and that shyster filed in a general trial court. Generally states have sovereign immunity other than to actions they explicitly allow, much as the federal government is. Much as the feds allow suit to be filed in the Court of Federal Claims for contracts and other things, Michigan allows suits against it in this specific court.
No other court has the power to order the state entity to do anything, so what this lawyer did ensured failure of the claim. The court literally couldn't have done anything even if it had wanted to or if the claim had any merit.
Malpractice generally requires some kind of harm to be compensable. Usually losing a claim that had no merit in the first place wouldn't qualify, but we don't really know that now, do we? There was never a hearing. And in this case, the lawyer filed in a court where absolute failure was guaranteed. His activities in the case were, quite literally, worthless. At the very least, he doesn't deserve to be paid.
And considering the client is actually literally dead thanks to him, without a hearing, not having had a hearing should itself be a compensable harm, even if it was just a harm to the dignitary interests of the client and parents (whichever he owed a duty to).
And doing his job this incompetently should also be subject to disciplinary proceedings because this is just shitlawyering to the max.
I should note it wasn't the lawyer actually at the hearing today who made the original mistake, but some clown they later got rid of, apparently. Still, I'd wonder why even that guy hadn't filed in the right court by now. The court they were at couldn't do anything at all because it had no jurisdiction.
