Court Opinion

ID: 9743672
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 21:40:08.746285+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:42.707243
License: Public Domain

O’Connor, J.
(dissenting). The court states that “[wjhen the plaintiffs received a letter from their neighbors’ attorney informing the plaintiffs that the neighbors were asserting a legal right to the property, the plaintiffs had sufficient notice of the facts to make the defendant’s alleged negligence no longer inherently unknowable.” Ante at 136. I agree. In addition, the court quite properly “assumes” that the defendant’s alleged negligence caused the plaintiffs appreciable harm when they purchased the property. It follows, then, in keeping with our cases, see, e.g., Bowen v. Eli Lilly & Co., 408 Mass. 204, 205-206 (1990); Olsen v. Bell Tel. Laboratories, Inc., 388 Mass. 171, 175 (1983); White v. Peabody Constr. Co., 386 Mass. 121, 129 (1982); Friedman v. Jablonski, 371 Mass. 482, 485 (1976); Hendrickson v. Sears, 365 Mass. 83, 90 (1974), that the plaintiffs’ cause of action accrued in mid-July, 1983, when they received the neighbors’ letter. I take it that the court agrees with that.
Then, purporting to apply the doctrine of continuing representation, the court reasons that for summary judgment purposes it must be assumed that, when the defendant told the plaintiffs that the letter they had received “did not present a *139cause for concern and that he would take care of it,” the defendant “again undertook to represent the plaintiffs” with the result that “the applicable statute of limitations . . . should have been tolled from the beginning of this representation until the defendant’s termination.” Ante at 137-138. “Thus,” says the court, “it becomes a question of fact as to when the services of the defendant in regard to the title dispute were undertaken and when they were terminated.” Ante at 138. For the reasons set forth below, I do not agree that the doctrine of continuing representation can properly be applied to this case, nor do I agree that once a cause of action has accrued, as it has here, this court, consistent with the constitutional principle of separation of powers, may suspend, or “toll,” the running of a statutory limitations period in the absence of statutory authorization. In my view, since the plaintiffs’ cause of action accrued in July, 1983, more than four years before this action was commenced, the action is time barred.
It is clear from the cases cited by the court that the doctrine of continuing representation as it applies to legal malpractice cases is premised on the idea that, if an attorney wrongs a client in connection with a particular matter and then continues to represent the client in reference to that same matter, the client cannot reasonably be expected to question or second-guess the attorney concerning that matter while the representation continues. According to the doctrine, which is entirely reasonable, the dependence of the client on his or her attorney while the representation continues makes any malpractice in connection therewith inherently unknowable by the client. The doctrine is simply an implementation of our familiar discovery rule which holds that a cause of action does not accrue until the fact that the plaintiff may have been injured by the wrong of another is reasonably knowable. The doctrine functions to establish the time of accrual as occurring after the period of continuing representation has begun and ended. The doctrine has no application in this case for two reasons. First, as the court recognizes, the cause of action here accrued before, not after, the *140“continuing representation” identified by the court even began. Second, the defendant attorney did not continue to represent the plaintiffs from the time of the alleged wrong until within three years of the commencement of this action, as the doctrine contemplates. Obviously, once the title certificate was delivered to the plaintiffs and the real estate transaction was closed, any attorney-client relationship between the defendant and the plaintiffs that may have existed until that time was over.1 The court does not suggest otherwise. Indeed, the court states that, when the defendant agreed to look into this matter, he “again undertook to represent the plaintiffs” (emphasis added). Ante at 137. So, in this case there was no continuing representation at any relevant time.
It should come as no surprise to anyone that the continuing representation doctrine has nothing to do with tolling the running of a limitations period that has already begun, but instead has to do with the question when a cause of action has accrued and thus has initiated the running of the limitations period. General Laws c. 260, § 4 (1990 ed.), provides in relevant part: “Actions of contract or tort for malpractice, error or mistake against attorneys . . . shall be commenced only within three years next after the cause of action accrues.” Nothing in c. 260 or elsewhere in the statutes of the Commonwealth provides for any relevant exception to that mandate. The court does not suggest otherwise, but simply carves out its own exception to the Legislature’s command. In doing so, the court ignores a very critical distinction which it has consistently recognized until now. That distinction is between declaring when a cause of action arises so as to trigger the running of a statutory limitations period, which is a question we have said many times is one that the Legislature has left to the courts, and the “amendment” of a statute by judicial fiat, which is inconsistent with the constitutionally *141mandated allocation of powers among the three branches of government.
In my view, this action was time barred. I would affirm the judgment for the defendant.

 shall pass over the question whether the defendant, who was retained by the bank and not by the plaintiffs, should be considered the plaintiffs’ attorney because G. L. c. 93, § 70 (1990 ed.), required the attorney to render them a title certificate.