An Arizona divorce decree listed a $200,000 family loan as just $100,000; after her lawyer missed the deadline to correct it, the woman sued, but a November 6 appeals court rejected her malpractice claim

A woman who lost the chance to correct an error in her divorce judgment because her lawyer missed a court deadline cannot receive compensation from the attorney, an Arizona appeals court has ruled. The decision, issued on 6 November 2026 by Division One of the Arizona Court of Appeals, upheld a lower court's summary judgment in favour of lawyer Jennifer Mihalovich and her law firm, Stewart Law Group. The court found that Gordana Mikalacki had failed to prove that her former lawyer's mistake caused her any direct financial loss. The legal malpractice case began with a calculation error in Mikalacki's 2021 divorce decree. The mistake listed a family debt as $100,000 less than the amount actually owed.Misstated loan leads to legal battleThe dispute began when Mikalacki's marriage ended. A Maricopa County Superior Court judge finalized the divorce on 9 March 2021. The couple's marital assets and debts included a personal loan from Mikalacki's father. The remaining balance on the shared debt was $200,000. However, the trial court mistakenly recorded the amount as $100,000 in the final divorce decree. Despite the error, Mihalovich, who represented Mikalacki during the divorce, failed to file a motion within the required time to change or correct the decree. The superior court initially approved a late request to fix the mistake. However, the Arizona Court of Appeals overturned that correction in October 2022 in Matter of Mikalacki v. Rubezic. The appeals court ruled that the legal deadline for making the correction had already passed. Unable to change the original decree, Mikalacki filed a legal malpractice lawsuit against Mihalovich and Stewart Law Group in Maricopa County Superior Court. The case was registered under docket number CV2023-018446.Superior court grants summary judgmentIn her lawsuit, Mikalacki argued that her lawyer's failure to meet the filing deadline had caused her direct financial harm. She claimed that if the divorce decree had correctly listed the $200,000 loan, the entire debt would have been paid using money from the sale of the family home. Instead, she argued that she was left at risk of paying more than her fair share. She also said she might have to take separate legal action against her former husband to recover his share. Mihalovich and Stewart Law Group asked the court to dismiss the case through summary judgment. They argued that Mikalacki had not suffered any actual financial loss directly caused by the missed deadline. Superior Court Judge Scott A. Blaney ruled in favour of the lawyers. He found that the error in the divorce decree had not changed the actual amount owed to Mikalacki's father or her legal responsibility for the debt. The court also noted that Mikalacki had provided no reliable evidence showing that her former husband could not pay his half of the debt because of long-term financial problems, disability or death. After her case was dismissed and her request for a new trial was denied, Mikalacki appealed to the Arizona Court of Appeals. Her appeal was registered under docket number 1 CA-CV 26-0178.Appeals court finds no direct financial harmIn a memorandum decision written by Presiding Judge Jennifer M. Perkins, the three-judge appeals panel upheld the lower court's ruling in full. The appeals court explained that under established Arizona legal decisions, including Phillips v. Clancy and Commercial Union Insurance Co. v. Lewis & Roca, anyone bringing a legal malpractice claim must prove that they suffered an actual financial loss directly caused by their lawyer's mistake. The loss cannot be based only on guesses or possible future events.Judge Perkins wrote that Mikalacki had failed to show a direct link between her lawyer missing the deadline and any actual financial damage. "Mihalovich's untimely filing did not cause Mikalacki to owe the full debt as a matter of joint and several liability," Judge Perkins wrote in the decision. Judges Brian Y. Furuya and D. Andrew Gaona joined her opinion.The court explained that a divorce decree can divide debts between former spouses, but it cannot change the rights of someone who is owed money by the couple. Citing the earlier decision in Fleming v. Tanner, the judges said that Mikalacki's father, who provided the loan, was not bound by the mistake in the divorce court's order.Right to equal contribution remains intactThe appeals court also explained that the original divorce decree was intended to divide the couple's debts equally. Since the decree assigned community debts on a 50-50 basis, Mikalacki still has the legal right to file a separate claim against her former husband and seek repayment of half of the full $200,000 loan. The court added that even if the missing $100,000 was treated as community debt that had not been properly assigned, Arizona law assumes that debts left out of a divorce agreement must be divided equally between both former spouses. The judges referred to the earlier ruling in Dressler v. Morrison in support of this position. The court rejected Mikalacki's argument that having to seek repayment from her former husband amounted to financial harm caused by her lawyer's mistake. It explained that if her former husband failed to pay his share in the future, that would be the result of his own actions, not the lawyer's earlier failure to meet the court deadline. Finding no legal error that justified changing the lower court's decision, the Arizona Court of Appeals upheld the summary judgment dismissing the malpractice lawsuit. It also ordered that court costs be awarded to Mihalovich and Stewart Law Group.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.