Source: http://masscases.com/cases/app/19/19massappct253.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 19:05:10+00:00

Document:
RICHARD GRAVELINE & another [Note 1] vs. BAYBANK VALLEY TRUST COMPANY, executor.
Present: GREANEY, C.J., KASS, & SMITH, JJ.
CIVIL ACTION commenced in the Hampden Division of the Housing Court Department on June 15, 1983.
The case was heard by Edward C. Peck, Jr., J., on a motion to dismiss.
John F. Dalsey for the plaintiffs.
James F. Martin for the defendant.
common law count of deceit. They filed their action June 15, 1983, two years and seven months after the sale.
The judge of the Hampden Housing Court [Note 3] allowed the bank's motion to dismiss based on the short one-year statute of limitations which applies to actions against executors, G. L. c. 260, Section 11. [Note 4] In the course of so doing, he rejected the argument of the plaintiffs, that the information concerning the roof was inherently unknowable and that, by application of Friedman v. Jablonski, 371 Mass. 482 , 485-486 (1976), the statute of limitations should be tolled until the time in 1983 when the plaintiffs became aware of the apparent age of the roof. We affirm.
v. Johns-Manville Sales Corp., 525 F.Supp. 671, 673-674 (D.D.C. 1981), who could not have known, before the manifestation of symptoms, that he suffered from bronchogenic carcinoma. Closer in subject matter to the case at bar is Friedman v. Jablonski, 371 Mass. at 487, in which it was not clear from the pleadings whether the location of an artesian well off the premises, rather than on them, could reasonably have been discovered before the sale of those premises took place. On the other hand, the location of a right of way in Friedman v. Jablonski was a fact held discoverable, i.e., knowable, by examination of public records. Id. at 486. See also Duco Associates, Inc. v. Lipson, 11 Mass. App. Ct. 935 , 935-936 (1981) (misrepresentation of rental income not inherently unknowable because the rents were on file with the local rent control board); contrast Dinsky v. Framingham, 386 Mass. 801 , 803 (1982) (defective grading by town was unknowable by plaintiff because it did not manifest itself until flood conditions occurred). Compare White v. Peabody Constr. Co., 386 Mass. 121 , 129-130 (1982); Mansfield v. GAF Corp., 5 Mass. App. Ct. 551 , 554-555 (1977) (action accrued when plaintiff became aware of defects in new roof, not when, later, plaintiff first learned of the extent of the damage).
and a statement that "Each item should be the subject of direct inquiry by buyers." In the circumstances, we think the plaintiffs had cause to investigate the age of the roof if that was a matter of importance to them. A physical inspection of real property by or on behalf of the buyer is not uncommon. On the record before the Housing Court judge, the age of the roof, as matter of law, was not inherently unknowable, and the judge rightly allowed a motion to dismiss the complaint as time-barred by G. L. c. 260, Section 11.
[Note 2] The parties have not argued, and on the view we take of the case it is not necessary to decide, whether the principle announced in Lantner v. Carson, 374 Mass. 606 , 608 (1978), that G. L. c. 93A does not provide a remedy when the transaction is private, ceases to apply upon the intercession of a professional fiduciary. Compare Gannett v. Lowell, 16 Mass. App. Ct. 325 , 328 (1983), involving activity by a nonprofessional fiduciary.
[Note 3] As to the jurisdiction of the Housing Court Department over a chapter 93A dealing with subject matter of the sort here presented, see G. L. c. 185C, Section 3, as amended by St. 1979, c. 72, Section 3. See Patry v. Liberty Mobilhome Sales, Inc., 15 Mass. App. Ct. 701 , 704-705 (1983).
[Note 4] So far as material, the statute reads: "An action founded on any contract made or act done, if made or done by any person acting as the executor . . . of the estate of a deceased person, shall be brought within one year. . . ."

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