Estate of Yael Botvin, by Russell Ellis, Administrator v. Heideman, Nudelman & Kalik, P.c.

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued January 16, 2024 Decided September 6, 2024
No. 22-7171
ESTATE OF YAEL BOTVIN, BY RUSSELL ELLIS,
ADMINISTRATOR, ET AL.,
APPELLANTS
v.
HEIDEMAN, NUDELMAN & KALIK, P.C., ET AL.,
APPELLEES
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 1:21-cv-03186)
Robert J. Tolchin argued the cause and filed the briefs for
appellants.
Jason R. Waters argued the cause and filed the brief for
appellees.
Before: KATSAS and PAN, Circuit Judges, and GINSBURG,
Senior Circuit Judge.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge KATSAS.
KATSAS, Circuit Judge: The plaintiffs in this legal-
malpractice action are the estate and family members of Yael
Botvin, who was killed in 1997 by Hamas suicide bombers. In
2005, the plaintiffs sued the Islamic Republic of Iran for
helping Hamas orchestrate the attack. They won large default
judgments and recovered about $2.8 million from a United
States fund for victims of state-sponsored terrorism. But
because it took nearly eight years to obtain the default
judgments, the plaintiffs were unable to participate in a 2012
agreement that disbursed to victims of Iranian-sponsored
terrorism a trove of Iranian assets seized in the United States.
According to the plaintiffs, their recovery would have been
much larger had they been able to participate in that agreement.
The plaintiffs sued their former lawyers for malpractice.
They allege that the lawyers’ negligence delayed their default
judgment against Iran and caused them to miss out on the larger
settlement. On a motion to dismiss, the district court held the
plaintiffs had adequately pleaded that the alleged negligence
was a but-for cause of the lower recovery. But in addressing
proximate cause, the court held that the plaintiffs had not
adequately pleaded the requisite degree of foreseeability. We
reverse that decision.
I
On a motion to dismiss for the failure to state a claim, we
must accept as true the facts alleged in the complaint. See
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). We also may
consider court records and other judicially noticeable
documents. EEOC v. St. Francis Xavier Parochial Sch., 117
F.3d 621, 624–25 (D.C. Cir. 1997).

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A
In 1997, three Hamas suicide bombers blew themselves up
in a pedestrian mall in Jerusalem. They killed five people,
including fourteen-year-old Yael Botvin, and injured nearly
two hundred more. Other victims of the bombing successfully
obtained judgments against Iran for sponsoring the attack.
In 2004, Botvin’s estate and family hired the law firm of
Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, P.C. to do the same. In 2005,
the firm filed a complaint against Iran in our district court. Iran
never appeared to defend, yet the firm did not obtain a default
judgment until July 2012. According to the plaintiffs, attorney
negligence caused this long delay.
As originally filed, the complaint raised various state-law
tort claims. Although United States courts generally lack
jurisdiction over foreign sovereigns, the Foreign Sovereign
Immunities Act contained an exception for suits seeking
damages for state-sponsored acts of terrorism. 28 U.S.C.
§ 1605(a)(7) (2004).
After Iran failed to appear, the lawyers moved the district
court to enter a default. Because the request should have been
made to the clerk of the court, see Fed. R. Civ. P. 55(a), the
court denied the motion, App’x 98. Only then did the lawyers
ask the clerk to enter the default.
Once the clerk did so, the lawyers moved the court for
entry of a default judgment, which required them to establish a
“right to relief by evidence satisfactory to the court.” 28 U.S.C.
§ 1608(e). The motion proffered no evidence other than
findings and conclusions in another case holding Iran liable for
the same bombing. The district court held that this evidence
did not establish each element of the plaintiffs’ individual
claims, so it denied the motion without prejudice. Estate of

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Botvin ex rel. Ellis v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 510 F. Supp. 2d
101, 102–03 (D.D.C. 2007).
When the lawyers filed the complaint, there was no federal
cause of action against foreign sovereigns for injuries caused
by state-sponsored terrorism. The FSIA provided subject-
matter jurisdiction for such actions, but the actions had to arise
under state or foreign law. See Cicippio-Puleo v. Islamic
Republic of Iran, 353 F.3d 1024, 1027 (D.C. Cir. 2004). In
2008, shortly after the district court denied the first motion for
a default judgment, Congress changed the legal landscape. It
enacted 28 U.S.C. § 1605A(c), which created a plaintiff-
friendly cause of action against foreign sovereigns for
supporting terrorism. Because some plaintiffs had incorrectly
assumed that the FSIA provided a federal cause of action,
Congress allowed any plaintiff who had invoked the Act as the
basis for its claim to convert the action into one under the new
statute. See id. § 1605A(a)(2)(A)(i)(II); id. § 1605A note
(2)(A) (Prior Actions). Congress also allowed for certain
parties who had not relied on a federal cause of action to refile
their claims under the new law. Id. § 1605A notes (2)–(3).
Congress’ creation of the federal cause of action gave
Botvin’s lawyers three options: continue the existing lawsuit
under state law, invoke the new federal cause of action in the
pending lawsuit, or refile the lawsuit under the federal cause of
action. The lawyers attempted both options for teeing up
federal claims. In the pending action, they moved the court to
convert their state-law causes of action into the federal ones
and to enter a default judgment. Simultaneously, they filed a
new lawsuit raising federal causes of action. App’x 16–17.
Neither strategy bore fruit.
The motion in the existing case was flawed in two respects.
First, because the original complaint did not invoke any
purported federal cause of action, it could not proceed under 28

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U.S.C. § 1605A(c). See Estate of Botvin ex rel. Ellis v. Islamic
Republic of Iran, 604 F. Supp. 2d 22, 25–26 (D.D.C. 2009).
Second, the evidence again was insufficient to support a default
judgment under state law because the lawyers had submitted
unsworn declarations and failed to explain how the evidence
related to the Botvins’ claims. Id. at 24–25. Denying the
motion without prejudice, the court requested further briefing
on unanswered choice-of-law questions. Id. at 26.
The lawyers tried again. They argued that California law
should apply because Botvin was born in California before
moving to Israel. And they sought entry of a default judgment
under California law. But after an intervening decision made
clear that Israeli law should apply, see Oveissi v. Islamic
Republic of Iran, 573 F.3d 835 (D.C. Cir. 2009), the district
court again denied the motion without prejudice, and it allowed
further briefing on whether Iran was liable to the Botvins under
Israeli law, Estate of Botvin ex rel. Ellis v. Islamic Republic of
Iran, 684 F. Supp. 2d 34, 39–42 (D.D.C. 2010).
The next (fourth) motion for default judgment failed for
the same reason. Instead of providing satisfactory analysis
under Israeli law, the lawyers primarily tried to relitigate the
choice-of-law question. Left again without adequate evidence
and argument under the governing legal standards, the district
court once more denied the motion without prejudice and again
allowed further briefing on liability under Israeli law. Estate
of Botvin ex rel. Ellis v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 772 F. Supp.
2d 218, 223–32 (D.D.C. 2011).
While the lawyers were attempting to obtain a default
judgment in the original case, the parallel case (invoking the
new federal cause of action) fared even worse. The lawyers
failed to file proof of service. A year passed, and after the
lawyers ignored a show-cause order, the district court
dismissed the case for lack of prosecution. Order at 1,

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Goldberg-Botvin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 1:08-cv-
00503, ECF No. 3 (D.D.C. Apr. 23, 2010).
At long last, the lawyers’ fifth motion for default judgment
in the original case achieved some limited success. The district
court granted the motion in part; in July 2012, it held that Yael
Botvin’s estate was entitled to $1.7 million. See Estate of
Botvin ex rel. Ellis v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 873 F. Supp. 2d
232, 246 (D.D.C. 2012). Yet the court found that the evidence
for the family’s claims still was insufficient. Id. at 244–45.
After the court rejected the family’s claims, the lawyers
filed a new complaint invoking the federal cause of action in
section 1605A. Things progressed smoothly this time, and the
family obtained a default judgment of nearly $41 million
against Iran in April 2013. Goldberg-Botvin v. Islamic
Republic of Iran, 938 F. Supp. 2d 1, 12 (D.D.C. 2013).
All told, it took the lawyers about eight years to obtain the
default judgments. The Botvins’ malpractice complaint alleges
that without their missteps—including repeated failures to
provide sufficient legal arguments and evidence over five
default-judgment motions—the judgments could have been
obtained years earlier.
B
When it comes to recovering against state sponsors of
terrorism, receiving a favorable judgment is the easy part;
satisfying the judgment is much harder. Of course, Iran does
not voluntarily pay judgments of United States courts holding
it liable for acts of terrorism. So, prevailing plaintiffs must find
attachable assets to seize in enforcement proceedings. Doing
so is difficult because sanctions severely limit Iran’s ability to

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conduct business in the United States. See, e.g., 31 C.F.R.
§§ 535.201, 535.202. And Iran does not do so visibly.
In 2008, during the Botvin’s litigation saga against Iran,
other victims discovered that Bank Markazi, Iran’s central
bank, was secretly holding about $1.9 billion in assets in a
United States bank account. Sixteen different groups of
plaintiffs, comprising more than 1,000 “victims of Iran-
sponsored acts of terrorism,” sought to enforce default
judgments against the Bank Markazi account. See Bank
Markazi v. Peterson, 578 U.S. 212, 219 (2016). Citibank,
which held the disputed account, filed an interpleader action
against all such judgment creditors in 2011. See id. at 221 &
n.9. Bank Markazi resisted enforcement on various grounds.
In June 2012, while the enforcement proceedings were still
pending, all claimants against the account agreed to split any
proceeds on a pro-rata basis of their compensatory damages.
App’x 26. The agreement included only parties who already
held judgments against Iran. It thus excluded the Botvin estate
(which obtained its judgment in July 2012) and the Botvin
family members (who obtained their judgment in April 2013).
Congress then acted to ensure that the parties to the
agreement could collect against the bank account. The Iran
Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012
targeted the pending litigation and removed various barriers to
enforcement. Pub. L. No. 112-158, § 502, 126 Stat. 1214,
1258–60 (codified at 22 U.S.C. § 8772). After the Supreme
Court rejected a constitutional challenge to the law, see Bank
Markazi, 578 U.S. at 236, the parties to the June 2012
agreement were able to obtain significant partial satisfaction.
These plaintiffs, with judgments totaling $3.7 billion in

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compensatory damages, divvied up the $1.9 billion account on
a pro-rata basis. App’x 30–31.
Instead of collecting from the Bank Markazi settlement,
the Botvin estate and family partially satisfied their judgments
through the United States Victims of State Sponsored
Terrorism Fund, which Congress created to provide
compensation to certain victims of state-sponsored terrorism.
See 34 U.S.C. § 20144. Holding compensatory judgments
totaling $11.7 million, they collected a total of nearly $2.8
million. App’x 30–31, 264. That is no small number, but it is
substantially less than the approximately $6 million the Botvins
say they would have received had they been able to participate
in the Bank Markazi settlement. Id. at 30–31.
The Botvin estate and family sued their law firm and
individual lawyers in federal court for malpractice under
District of Columbia law. The lawyers moved to dismiss the
complaint on the ground that it failed to adequately plead
proximate causation and that the allegedly negligent litigation
decisions were reasonable exercises of professional discretion.
The district court dismissed the complaint with prejudice.
Estate of Botvin v. Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, P.C., No.
1:21-cv-3186, 2022 WL 4482734, at *1 (D.D.C. Sept. 27,
2022). It held that the complaint adequately alleged that
attorney errors were a but-for cause of their missing out on a
chance to participate in the Bank Markazi settlement. Id. at
*10–11. But it also held that the complaint did not adequately
allege the essential element of proximate causation because, as
a matter of law, the claimed injury was not foreseeable. Id. at
*11–15. Later, the court denied a motion for reconsideration.
See Estate of Botvin v. Heideman Nudelman & Kalik, P.C., No.
1:21-cv-3186, 2022 WL 18024714, at *1–3 (D.D.C. Dec. 12,
2022). The Botvin estate and family now appeal the dismissal
of their complaint.

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II
We review de novo a dismissal for failure to state a claim.
Kowal v. MCI Commc’ns Corp., 16 F.3d 1271, 1276 (D.C. Cir.
1994). Like the district court, we must take the facts alleged in
the complaint as true and must make all reasonable inferences
in favor of the plaintiffs. Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678.
Sitting in diversity, we apply D.C. choice-of-law rules.
See Klaxon Co. v. Stentor Electric Mfg. Co., 313 U.S. 487,
496–97 (1941); Wu v. Stomber, 750 F.3d 944, 949 (D.C. Cir.
2014). Here, it seems obvious that D.C. choice-of-law rules
would require application of D.C. law to the conduct of a D.C.
firm handling a case pending in D.C. As both sides appear to
agree on this point, we will apply D.C. law. See Perry Cap.
LLC v. Mnuchin, 864 F.3d 591, 626 n.24 (D.C. Cir. 2017).
A
To state a legal-malpractice claim under D.C. law, a
plaintiff must plausibly allege that the defendant served as the
plaintiff’s attorney, the defendant breached a duty of
reasonable care, and the breach “resulted in, and was the
proximate cause of, the plaintiff’s loss or damages.” Martin v.
Ross, 6 A.3d 860, 862 (D.C. 2010). For an act to proximately
cause an injury, the causal connection must be “direct and
substantial,” and the injury must be “foreseeable.” Convit v.
Wilson, 980 A.2d 1104, 1125 (D.C. 2009) (cleaned up). So, if
“an intervening act not reasonably foreseeable (sometimes
referred to as a ‘superseding cause’) breaks the chain of
causation,” there can be no liability. Seed Co. Ltd. v.
Westerman, Hattori, Daniels & Adrian, LLP, 961 F.3d 1190,
1196–97 (D.C. Cir. 2020) (applying D.C. law) (cleaned up).
The foreseeability requirement does not demand the
defendant to have “foreseen the precise injury” suffered by the

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plaintiff or have “notice of the particular method in which a
harm would occur,” so long as “the possibility of harm was
clear to the ordinary prudent eye.” District of Columbia v.
Harris, 770 A.2d 82, 92 (D.C. 2001) (cleaned up). Stated
another way, the harm is foreseeable if it is “the natural and
probable consequence of the” negligence alleged. Lacy v.
District of Columbia, 424 A.2d 317, 320 (D.C. 1980). The
defendant “need not have foreseen the precise injury.” Spar v.
Obwoya, 369 A.2d 173, 177 (D.C. 1977) (cleaned up).
“Proximate cause is generally a factual issue to be resolved
by the jury.” Majeska v. District of Columbia, 812 A.2d 948,
950 (D.C. 2002) (cleaned up). It “becomes a question of law”
when, but only when, no jury could make a “rational finding of
proximate cause.” Id. (cleaned up); see Seed Co., 961 F.3d at
1197. The D.C. Court of Appeals has said that such cases are
“exceptional.” See, e.g., Nat’l Health Lab’ys v. Ahmadi, 596
A.2d 555, 560 (D.C. 1991); Hill v. McDonald, 442 A.2d 133,
137 (D.C. 1982).
B
The district court dismissed the Botvins’ complaint on the
ground that, as a matter of law, the harm it alleged was not
sufficiently foreseeable. In this procedural posture, the
dispositive question is whether a jury could make a rational
finding of foreseeability based on the facts as alleged. We do
not consider whether the alleged facts would compel a finding
of foreseeability, or even whether a wise jury should find
foreseeability. We hold only that a jury could rationally find
that the plaintiffs’ reduced recovery was a foreseeable result of
the alleged negligence of their former lawyers.
The Botvins posit that missing out on the chance to satisfy
a judgment is the kind of harm one would expect from
negligently delaying its acquisition. They contend that,

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because collection opportunities come and go, a jury could
rationally conclude that the natural and probable result of
failing to obtain a judgment for several years is that some of
those opportunities will be lost.
Regardless of whether this reasoning always holds true, it
might apply in the context of terrorism judgments against Iran.
Once the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of
1996 allowed lawsuits against foreign sovereigns for
supporting terrorism, Pub. L. No. 104-132, § 221(a), 110 Stat.
1214, 1241, more and more victims of Iranian-sponsored
terrorism have obtained such judgments. By 2016, Iran had
racked up a $56 billion tab of unpaid judgments, which was
around six times what it owed in 2008. See Application
Instituting Proceedings (Iran v. United States) (June 14, 2016),
http://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/164/19038.pdf; In re
Islamic Republic of Iran Terrorism Litig., 659 F. Supp. 2d 31,
58 (D.D.C. 2009). That amount has almost certainly grown in
the meantime, with victims continuing to obtain large
judgments and Iran still refusing to pay. See, e.g., Roth v.
Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 1:19-cv-02179, 2023 WL
3203032, at *5 (D.D.C. May 2, 2023) ($629 million); Fuld v.
Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 20-cv-2444, 2024 WL 1328790,
at *20 (D.D.C. Mar. 28, 2024) ($191 million); Stearns v.
Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 17-cv-131, 2024 WL 1886645,
at *6 (D.D.C. Apr. 30, 2024) ($1.6 billion).
A natural inference from this ever-increasing number of
judgments is that there will be ever-increasing competition to
satisfy judgments when and if attachable Iranian assets surface.
And given the scarcity of available Iranian assets, creditors
may need to be ready to attach them at a moment’s notice. It
may be prudent, therefore, for creditors’ lawyers to promptly
secure judgments against Iran in order to be prepared if an
opportunity to attach arises.

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The facts alleged here fit the pattern. While the Botvins’
litigation was pending, other judgment creditors discovered the
Bank Markazi account, and more than 1,000 of them moved
quickly to satisfy their judgments before the money ran out.
Moreover, the defendants in this case represented at least one
group of these creditors. In March 2010, they filed an
attachment notice against the account on behalf of those
victims of Iranian-sponsored terrorism. App’x 22, 25. Yet
even after that filing, the defendants still submitted two
allegedly negligent default-judgment motions. Given their
actual knowledge of the Bank Markazi account, and their
experience in dealing with collection challenges associated
with suits against Iran, we think a jury could reasonably find
that these lawyers would have “reason to believe that” the
delayed entry of default judgments would cause a loss of
enforcement opportunities against the attachable Iranian assets
in the account. Seed Co., 961 F.3d at 1197.
For these reasons, the question of foreseeability in this
case raised a jury question on the facts as alleged.
C
Instead of asking whether the type of harm that the
plaintiffs suffered was foreseeable, the district court required
foreseeability as to the precise manner in which the harm
occurred. Here is what the court required to be foreseeable:
(1) a substantial cache of U.S.-based Iranian assets
would be located; (2) other plaintiffs also seeking to
execute their judgments against Iran would devise a
novel privately-negotiated settlement agreement; (3)
a delay in securing a judgment would cripple the
Botvin Family’s effort to participate in the settlement;
(4) the judge overseeing the settlement agreement
would allow the Botvin Family to participate in the

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settlement; (5) Congress would pass an “unusual
statute,” Bank Markazi, 578 U.S. at 215, removing the
legal barriers to securing the assets; (6) the statute
would be upheld on appeal; and (7) the Botvin Family
would ultimately have recovered more than they did
from the U.S.V.S.S.T. Fund.
Estate of Botvin, 2022 WL 4482734, at *11. Because the
lawyers could not foresee each step in this long string of events,
the court held as a matter of law that the complaint had not
alleged the foreseeability element of proximate causation. Id.
The district court required too much specificity. Under
D.C. law, only the type of harm must be foreseeable, not “the
particular method” by which the plaintiff will be harmed.
Harris, 770 A.2d at 92. For instance, it is enough for a landlord
to know of criminal incidents in or around the rental property
at issue, even if there was “only one assaultive crime” in the
precise area where the plaintiff was assaulted. Spar, 369 A.2d
at 177. And it is enough for a bar to know that serving alcohol
to a visibly intoxicated patron risks injury to innocent
bystanders, even if it could not foresee that an assault victim
would hit his head and die. See Casey v. McDonald’s Corp.,
880 F.3d 564, 567–78 (D.C. Cir. 2018).
A medical-malpractice case, District of Columbia v. Perez,
694 A.2d 882 (D.C. 1997), illustrates this point in the context
of professional liability. A hospital declined to admit a
pregnant Rosa Perez, who appeared ill and showed signs of
jaundice. Id. at 883–84. After it finally did, Perez died from a
rare fatty liver disease. The hospital argued that the death was
unforeseeable as a matter of law “because fatty liver disease is
so rare.” Id. at 885–86. The D.C. Court of Appeals rejected
that contention. It explained that although the hospital could
not foresee that Perez had fatty liver disease, it could foresee

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that “some injury” might occur when the hospital failed to
admit her. Id. at 886. And that was enough to support a jury
verdict that the hospital’s negligent failure to admit and treat
Perez in time was a proximate cause of her death. See id. So
too here: Although the lawyers could not have known in
advance all the particulars and timing of the Bank Markazi
settlement, it would be enough for a jury to conclude that they
should have foreseen that a years-long delay in obtaining
default judgments against Iran would cause the Botvins to miss
out on satisfaction opportunities in the relevant, hyper-
competitive enforcement environment.
In reaching the opposite conclusion, the district court
relied on Seed Co. and Pietrangelo v. Wilmer Cutler Pickering
Hale & Dorr, LLP, 68 A.3d 697 (D.C. 2013). Neither case
provides enough for the defendants to prevail.
Seed Co. involved a fact pattern starkly different from the
one alleged here. There, we held as a matter of law that a
lawyer who gave a client bad advice about its claim against one
party (Westerman) did not proximately cause the client’s loss
of a separate claim against a different party (Kratz). 961 F.3d
at 1196–97. We explained that foreseeability was lacking
because the lawyer “had no reason to believe that, by advising
Seed about pursuing a malpractice claim against Westerman,
Seed would rely on that advice in deciding when to bring a
malpractice claim against Kratz.” Id. at 1197. To reinforce
this conclusion, we elaborated that another law firm had taken
over pursuing the claim against Kratz, and its mistakes were a
more direct cause of the client’s losing that claim. See id.
Seed Co. supports our analysis here. Applying the
governing standards of D.C. tort law set forth above, Seed Co.
focused its foreseeability analysis on a relatively general type
of harm: Regardless of any particulars about how the bad

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advice might have caused a lost claim, our overarching point
was a broader one that clients receiving advice about one
matter do not generally rely on it in making decisions about a
different matter handled by different counsel and involving a
different counter-party. 961 F.3d at 1197. Here, in contrast,
counsel undertook their allegedly negligent acts in the same
matter in which plaintiffs allegedly suffered harm—lawsuits by
the Botvin family and estate arising from the death of Yael
Botvin in a 1997 terrorist attack sponsored by Iran. No other
law firm was involved. And the lawyers’ experience with
obtaining and enforcing judgments against Iran—including
their specific involvement with the Bank Markazi account—
could have given them “reason to believe” that any negligent
delay in obtaining the default judgments would result in lost
enforcement opportunities. Id. In sum, Seed Co. recognized
that a lawyer cannot necessarily foresee all the harm or reliance
that may result from his malpractice; but here a jury could
conclude that the lost enforcement opportunity related to the
Bank Markazi account was foreseeable given the lawyers’
knowledge of the account and their experience in litigating
cases involving Iran.
Pietrangelo involved a wildly speculative causal claim.
The plaintiff in that case, James Pietrangelo, lost a
constitutional challenge to a federal statute restricting military
service by homosexuals. Cook v. Gates, 528 F.3d 42 (1st Cir.
2008). Pietrangelo filed a petition for certiorari opposed by his
former counsel, WilmerHale. Pietrangelo argued that “‘but
for’ WilmerHale’s filing, the Supreme Court would have
granted certiorari, found in his favor on the merits, and
remanded the case to the federal district court, which would
have ordered Pietrangelo’s reinstatement into the military.”
Pietrangelo, 68 A.3d at 710. The D.C. Court of Appeals
affirmed the dismissal of Pietrangelo’s complaint as resting on
too much “compound speculation” to state even a plausible

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claim of but-for causation. See id. (Pietrangelo “cannot
demonstrate that ‘but for’ WilmerHale’s filing he would have
achieved such a result”). And who could quarrel with that
assessment? Grants of certiorari are hard to come by, and
Pietrangelo’s pro se petition for certiorari—affirmatively
opposed by eleven of the twelve service members who were his
co-plaintiffs and co-appellants below, and who eventually
retained Supreme Court counsel besides WilmerHale—was
hardly a promising exception.
In contrast, this case involves no such speculation about
hypothetical outcomes of longshot filings. The Botvin estate
and family did obtain large default judgments against Iran, and
all other plaintiffs with such judgments did obtain pro rata
shares of the Bank Markazi account. Calculating what would
have been the Botvin share of that account, had the estate and
the family members obtained their default judgments without
unusually long delays, is a simple matter of arithmetic. The
only but-for question here is whether the complaint plausibly
alleged that attorney missteps caused enough delay to make a
difference. The district court correctly answered yes to that
question. See Estate of Botvin, 2022 WL 4482734, at *10–11.
And before this Court, the defendants do not even contest that
ruling as to but-for causation.
In short, this was not the exceptional case where there were
“absolutely no facts or circumstances from which a jury could
reasonably have found that the appellees were negligent and
that such negligence was the proximate cause of the injury.”
Speights v. 800 Water St., Inc., 4 A.3d 471, 475 (D.C. 2010)
(cleaned up). Accordingly, on the facts as alleged, the question
of proximate cause was one for the jury to decide.

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III
The lawyers ask us to affirm on the alternative ground that
any of their mistakes would be protected by the doctrine of
judgmental immunity, which forecloses malpractice liability
for “an informed professional judgment made with reasonable
care and skill.” Biomet Inc. v. Finnegan Henderson LLP, 967
A.2d 662, 668 (D.C. 2009).
We decline to consider this question, which the district
court did not reach. Our “normal rule” is to remand where
necessary for the district court to address issues in the first
instance. Liberty Prop. Tr. v. Rep. Props. Corp., 577 F.3d 335,
341 (D.C. Cir. 2009). Of course, we have discretion to “affirm
on different grounds” than those resolved below. United States
ex rel. Settlemire v. District of Columbia, 198 F.3d 913, 920
(D.C. Cir. 1999). But doing so here, with only minimal
briefing on the issue, would be inadvisable.
IV
For these reasons, we reverse the judgment dismissing the
complaint and remand for further proceedings consistent with
this opinion.
So ordered.

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