Title: Montgomery v. Eaton Peabody, LLP

State: maine

Issuer: Maine Supreme Court

Document:

MAINE SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT 
 
 
 
     
    Reporter of Decisions 
Decision: 
2016 ME 44 
Docket: 
Cum-15-192 
Submitted 
  On Briefs: 
November 19, 2015 
Decided: 
March 29, 2016 
 
Panel: 
SAUFLEY, C.J., and ALEXANDER, MEAD, JABAR, and HJELM, JJ. 
 
 
R. BRUCE MONTGOMERY et al. 
 
v. 
 
EATON PEABODY, LLP et al. 
 
 
MEAD, J. 
 
[¶1]  R. Bruce Montgomery and Wanda Haddock (collectively, 
Montgomery) appeal from a judgment of the Superior Court (1) granting 
Judy A.S. Metcalf and William V. Ferdinand Jr.’s (collectively, the Eaton Peabody 
attorneys) motion to dismiss multiple counts of Montgomery’s complaint for legal 
malpractice, and (2) denying Montgomery’s motion for leave to file a third 
amended complaint.  We affirm the judgment. 
I.  BACKGROUND 
 
[¶2]  In 1960, Montgomery’s parents purchased seven shorefront lots of land 
in Georgetown, numbered thirty-seven through forty-three on a 1935 subdivision 
plan recorded in the Sagadahoc County Registry of Deeds.  In 1974, Georgetown 
adopted a Shoreland Zoning Ordinance (SZO), which applied to properties located 
 
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within 250 feet of the normal high water line, including the Montgomery lots.  The 
SZO created requirements that all buildings in the zone be set back a certain 
distance from the normal high water line, and that lots created in the zone have an 
area of at least 20,000 square feet.  However, properties that predated the effective 
date of the ordinance were considered “grandfathered” or “nonconforming lots of 
record” and accordingly were exempt from the requirements of the SZO. 
[¶3]  When the SZO was adopted in 1974, a single-family residence spanned 
lots thirty-seven, thirty-eight, and thirty-nine, and a studio was located on the 
remaining lots.  The lots were under the common ownership of Montgomery’s 
parents from 1960 until 1975, when Montgomery’s parents executed the first of a 
series of conveyances between themselves individually and later to Montgomery 
and his siblings.  The 1975 conveyance partitioned lots thirty-seven and 
thirty-eight from the others, resulting in a property that was less than 20,000 square 
feet.  In 1999, lots thirty-seven and thirty-eight were conveyed to Montgomery. 
 
[¶4]  In 2004, the Georgetown Planning Board granted Montgomery one 
building permit for two distinct projects on the property: the expansion of the 
principal structure and the addition of a garage as a new accessory structure.  
While construction of the garage was underway, the Georgetown code enforcement 
officer determined that the structure was not being built according to the 
 
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specifications in the permit and that it violated the SZO’s setback requirement.  A 
stop-work order was then issued to cease construction of the garage. 
[¶5]  On August 17, 2005, the Georgetown Planning Board held a hearing 
(at which Montgomery was not present) and revoked Montgomery’s building 
permit.  Montgomery, represented by the Eaton Peabody attorneys, appealed the 
revocation of the permit to the Georgetown Board of Appeals on the grounds that 
he received inadequate notice of the hearing, and that, in any case, the property 
was grandfathered and therefore was not subject to the SZO’s setback provision.  
On October 31, 2005, the Georgetown Board of Appeals found, in “findings of 
fact #8,” that “[t]he lot at issue was created in 1999, is less than two acres in area, 
and is non-conforming under the [SZO], and is not a ‘non-conforming [l]ot of 
[r]ecord.’”  Notwithstanding its findings, the Board of Appeals ultimately 
remanded the case to the Planning Board for reconsideration because it agreed that 
Montgomery did not receive adequate notice of the hearing at which the permit 
was revoked.  The Eaton Peabody attorneys did not appeal any of the Board of 
Appeals’ findings of fact. 
[¶6]  On November 16, 2005, at the proceeding before the Planning Board 
on remand, the Eaton Peabody attorneys told the Board that Montgomery did not 
object to the revocation of the part of the permit that provided for the expansion of 
the principal structure.  However, Montgomery contested the revocation of the part 
 
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of the permit dealing with the construction of the garage.  The Planning Board 
revoked only the part of the permit authorizing the expansion of the principal 
structure, but left in place the stop-work order on the construction of the garage. 
[¶7]  On September 19, 2008, Montgomery, no longer represented by the 
Eaton Peabody attorneys, filed an application for a building permit and appeared 
pro se before the Planning Board.  The Board denied the application because the 
lot 1) was not grandfathered, and 2) did not satisfy the minimum square-foot 
requirement set forth by the SZO.  After the adverse decision, Montgomery hired 
attorney Clifford H. Goodall to undertake what the Superior Court 
(Cumberland County, Wheeler, J.) later characterized as “damage control.”  In 
January 2010, Montgomery, through Goodall, applied for a permit to connect the 
noncompliant, accessory structure to the principal structure, but the Planning 
Board denied the application because the property was not grandfathered.  
Montgomery appealed the Planning Board’s decision and the Board of Appeals 
affirmed. 
[¶8]  On October 27, 2011, Montgomery filed a complaint against the 
Eaton Peabody attorneys asserting, among other things, legal malpractice based on 
their failure to appeal the Board of Appeals’ findings of fact made on 
October 31, 2005.  The Eaton Peabody attorneys filed a motion to dismiss five of 
the six counts of the complaint, see M.R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6), and on 
 
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January 29, 2013, the court (Mills, J.) granted the motion.  On August 29, 2013, 
Montgomery filed, and the court later granted, a motion for leave to file what he 
described as a second amended complaint.  In count seven of the second amended 
complaint, Montgomery, for the first time, raised legal malpractice claims against 
Goodall, alleging that he was negligent in admitting to the Board of Appeals that 
the Montgomery lots were not grandfathered.1 
[¶9]  On September 23, 2014, Goodall filed a motion for summary 
judgment.  See M.R. Civ. P. 56.  On December 31, 2014, more than three years 
after the commencement of the suit, Montgomery filed a motion for leave to file a 
third amended complaint, together with the opposition to Goodall’s motion for 
summary judgment.  The proposed third amended complaint sought to “add 
additional counts that allege . . . Goodall was negligent for failing to advise 
[Montgomery] that [his] lot was never a grandfathered lot under the 1974 [SZO] 
and negligent for failing to advise [him] to accept a settlement offer . . . .”  On 
March 25, 2015, the court (Wheeler, J.) denied Montgomery’s motion to amend 
the pleadings and granted Goodall’s motion for summary judgment, finding that 
                                         
1  On December 26, 2013, the court dismissed the last remaining count of the original complaint 
pursuant to a settlement agreement between Montgomery and the Eaton Peabody attorneys. 
 
 
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Montgomery’s property lost its grandfathered status in 1975 after the conveyance 
resulted in a lot that was less than 20,000 square feet.  Montgomery appealed.2 
II.  DISCUSSION 
A. 
Motion to Dismiss 
[¶10]  “We review the legal sufficiency of the complaint de novo and view 
the complaint in the light most favorable to the plaintiff to determine whether it 
sets forth elements of a cause of action or alleges facts that would entitle the 
plaintiff to relief pursuant to some legal theory.”  Nadeau v. Frydrych, 
2014 ME 154, ¶ 5, 108 A.3d 1254 (quotation marks omitted); see also Ramsey v. 
Baxter Title Co., 2012 ME 113, ¶ 6, 54 A.3d 710. 
[¶11]  The court (Mills, J.) dismissed counts one through five of 
Montgomery’s complaint.  These five counts, as the court described, alleged that 
the Eaton Peabody attorneys  
were negligent because they failed to appeal the “findings of fact” #8, 
failed to argue before the Board of Appeals . . . that [the] lot was not a 
nonconforming lot of record, failed to advise [Montgomery and 
Haddock] of their right to appeal finding #8, failed to ask the Planning 
Board at the [November 16, 2005,] hearing to find that the lot was a 
non-conforming lot of record, and failed to be familiar with, and 
advise [Montgomery and Haddock] about, the [SZO] and failed to 
fully evaluate the implications of finding #8.  
 
                                         
2  Montgomery does not challenge the court’s decision to grant the motion for summary judgment. 
 
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[¶12]  We agree with much of the rationale set forth by the court in its order 
granting the Eaton Peabody attorneys’ motion to dismiss.  The court concluded that 
the Board of Appeals’ findings of fact in 2005 were not a final judgment—and 
therefore not appealable—because the case was remanded to the Planning Board 
for reconsideration due to the inadequate notice of the hearing.  The Board of 
Appeals’ findings were ultimately immaterial because at the hearing on remand 
Montgomery did not object to the partial revocation of the permit and at later 
proceedings Montgomery conceded that the lot was indeed not grandfathered.  
Beyond this, in its order on Goodall’s motion for summary judgment—a decision 
that Montgomery did not appeal and is therefore final—the court found that the 
1975 partition of lots thirty-seven and thirty-eight from the other lots resulted in a 
property that was less than 20,000 square feet, thereby terminating any 
grandfathered status from that point forward.  Because the lot was not 
grandfathered at the time of the initial application for a building permit in 2004, as 
the court found, “there [was] nothing that Attorney Goodall or any other attorney 
could have done to obtain a different result” in this matter.  The court, therefore, 
properly granted the Eaton Peabody attorneys’ motion to dismiss. 
B. 
Motion to File Third Amended Complaint 
[¶13]  In reviewing the denial of a motion to amend pleadings, we determine 
whether the party has “demonstrate[d] (1) that the court clearly and manifestly 
 
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abused its discretion and (2) that the amendment [was] necessary to prevent 
injustice.”  America v. Sunspray Condo. Ass’n, 2013 ME 19, ¶ 7, 61 A.3d 1249 
(quotation marks omitted) (second alteration in original).  A motion to amend may 
be denied based on one or more of the following grounds: undue delay, bad faith, 
undue prejudice, or futility of amendment.  Bangor Motor Co. v. Chapman, 
452 A.2d 389, 392 (Me. 1982).  When “a proposed amended complaint would be 
subject to a motion to dismiss, the court is well within its discretion in denying 
leave to amend.”  Glynn v. City of S. Portland, 640 A.2d 1065, 1067 (Me. 1994). 
 
[¶14]  The court (Wheeler, J.) denied the motion to amend because of 
Montgomery’s undue delay and the potentially prejudicial impact on the litigation.  
The court noted that Montgomery sought a third amended complaint “over 
three years after the original complaint was filed and over a year after the second 
amended complaint was filed.”  In addition, the amendments that Montgomery 
proposed contradicted the theories of legal malpractice previously set forth and 
would have “completely change[d] the nature of the malpractice case.” 
[¶15]  In the proposed third amended complaint, Montgomery sought to 
raise additional claims against Goodall, contending that he was negligent in failing 
to advise Montgomery that his property was, in fact, not grandfathered.  This new 
allegation reflected Montgomery’s apparent understanding that the lot was never 
grandfathered following the 1975 conveyance, and therefore was not a 
 
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nonconforming lot of record during all relevant times here.  However, 
Montgomery could have raised the proposed allegations much earlier in the 
litigation because the 1974 SZO, by its plain terms, outlines the minimum lot-size 
requirement.  Thus, the Superior Court acted within the bounds of its discretion in 
denying the motion to file a third amended complaint made three years after the 
commencement of the suit.  See Efstathiou v. Aspinquid, Inc., 2008 ME 145, ¶ 22, 
956 A.2d 110 (affirming denial of motion to amend counterclaim made five 
months after amended complaint and one year after commencement of suit); 
Drinkwater v. Patten Realty Corp., 563 A.2d 772, 778 (Me. 1989) (affirming 
denial of motion to amend complaint first made three years after commencement 
of suit and five days before trial); see also Burns v. Architectural Doors & 
Windows, 2011 ME 61, ¶ 22 n.5, 19 A.3d 823 (observing that trial court would 
have been unlikely to grant motion to amend complaint made two years after 
commencement of suit). 
The entry is: 
Judgment affirmed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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On the briefs: 
 
Jed Davis, Esq., Jim Mitchell and Jed Davis, P.A., Augusta, for 
appellants R. Bruce Montgomery and Wanda Haddock 
 
Eben M. Albert, Esq., and Daniel J. Mitchell, Esq., Bernstein 
Shur, Portland, for appellees Eaton Peabody, LLP and William 
V. Ferdinand Jr. 
 
Wendell G. Large, Esq., and Heidi J. Hart, Esq., Richardson, 
Whitman, Large & Badger, for appellee Clifford H. Goodall 
 
 
 
Cumberland County Superior Court docket number CV-2011-472 
FOR CLERK REFERENCE ONLY