Opinion ID: 2102034
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: the claims against the lawyers

Text: The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Arthur Peter and his law firm, Hamel & Park, on appellants' claims of malpractice [21] and breach of fiduciary duty. In pertinent part, the court's order reads as follows: The only acts and omissions complained of by the plaintiffs for which the plaintiffs have proffered any evidence and which might possibly be actionable are those acts and omissions occurring on or about May 30, 1973; however, the consequences of those acts and omissions were fully known to and appreciated by all the plaintiffs on or about July 3, 1979. In view of the fact that the plaintiffs purposely delayed bringing this action until September 26, 1984, it is barred by the applicable Statute of Limitations. We hold that the trial court erred in concluding that the statute of limitations began to run on July 3, 1979, and accordingly we reverse the grant of summary judgment to Mr. Peter and his partners in Hamel & Park.
The statute of limitations applicable to this case requires that an action be brought within three years from the date on which the claim accrues. D.C.Code § 12-301(8) (1981). A cause of action usually accrues at the time of injury, but if the relationship between the fact of injury and the alleged tortious conduct is obscure when the injury occurs, we apply a `discovery rule' to determine when the statute of limitations commences. Bussineau v. President & Directors of Georgetown College, 518 A.2d 423, 425 (D.C.1986) (citations omitted); accord, Knight v. Furlow, 553 A.2d 1232, 1234 (D.C.1989). Under the discovery rule, [t]he statute of limitations begins to run when the facts which form the basis of the claim are discovered, or reasonably should be discovered in the exercise of due diligence. Interdonato v. Interdonato, 521 A.2d 1124, 1135 (D.C.1987) (citations omitted). The trial court held that appellants fully [knew] ... and appreciated the alleged wrongdoing by Mr. Peter and his colleagues on July 3, 1979, when John Lemp, Jr., reviewed the file on his father's estate in the Probate Division of the Superior Court. On that occasion John noticed some peculiarities in his father's 1974 will and learned, to his surprise, that his wealthy father's estate had been administered as a small estate. John talked briefly with a lawyer present in the room, who advised him to take legal action. From these circumstances the trial court reasoned that appellants knew or should have known of their claimed injury. The evidence does not support the court's reasoning. The discoveries made by John Lemp in July 1979 do not indicate any malpractice by Mr. Peter or his colleagues in May 1973. [22] There is no dispute that appellants did in fact expect their father's estate to pass to Mary; at most, John may have wondered why his father's personal effects had not been bequeathed to him and his brother and sister. The only possible impropriety uncovered by John in July 1979 was that his father might have lacked testamentary capacity to make his 1974 will, a matter of little or no importance to a claim of malpractice in 1973. Appellants could not have learned of any possible malpractice by Mr. Peter until Mary died and left the bulk of her estate to her brother. Until then, appellants assumed that Mary would leave most of her estate to them, as they allege their father had intended. Only when appellants learned of their disinheritance, after Mary's death, could they have brought an action for malpractice. Therefore, we hold that the earliest date upon which appellants could have discovered their alleged injury was October 2, 1981, the date of Mary's death. Since the action against Mr. Peter and his partners at Hamel & Park was filed within three years after that date, the statute of limitations does not bar their malpractice claim.
The same reasoning applies to appellants' claim that Mr. Peter and Hamel & Park breached their fiduciary duty. As to this claim also, we hold that the statute did not begin to run until October 2, 1981, at the earliest. We treat the fiduciary duty claim separately here only because appellees make an additional argument which is not supported by the record. Appellees assert that the trial court made two separate rulings on appellants' claims. In their brief they refer to (and rely on) the trial court's first ruling, which disposed of Count II of the Amended Complaint alleging a breach of fiduciary duties owed Colonel Lemp when Hamel & Park prepared a new will for Mary Lemp following Colonel Lemp's death. Appellants state in their reply brief that it is by no means clear that the court made such a ruling. We agree with appellants. The only order in the record which purports to address either of appellants' claims on the merits is the one we have quoted at page 1143, supra. That order grants appellees' motion for summary judgment on the sole ground that the statute of limitations began to run more than three years before the filing of the complaint. We find it significant that the reference in appellees' brief to the court's first ruling is not accompanied by a citation to the record, as our rules require, [23] although the rest of their brief is replete with such citations. Notwithstanding this lapse, we have combed the voluminous record for some indication of this first ruling, but we have found no evidence of it. We can only conclude that appellees are mistaken in their recollection of what the trial court did. Appellees raise certain questions relating to the evidence offered in support of appellants' breach of fiduciary duty claim. Since it does not appear that the trial court ever ruled on these questions, we refrain from considering them here, leaving them for the trial court to resolve in the first instance on remand. Two preliminary issues which the court on remand will have to address are, first, whether appellees Peter and Hamel & Park owed any fiduciary duty to these appellants, as distinct from their father and stepmother (who were the law firm's actual clients), and second, whether these appellants have standing to sue for an alleged breach of fiduciary duty to their father and stepmother. We express no view on either issue. [24]