Court Opinion

ID: 9686156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:31:40.053125+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:15.493913
License: Public Domain

Beasley, P.J.
(dissenting). I respectfully dissent.
In Wieczorek v Volkswagenwerk A G, 731 F2d 309 (1984), the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit addressed the question of relation back of an appointment as administrator in a wrongful death action in Michigan. Noting that the Michigan Supreme Court had not yet addressed the question, the Federal Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals attempted to harmonize our Court of Appeals decisions dealing with that issue. That court concluded that, under Michigan law, an appointment as administrator after the statute of *494limitations has expired relates back to the filing of a wrongful death suit if, at the time the suit was filed, the plaintiff reasonably believed he had authority to bring suit as administrator. I conclude, as do the majority, that Wieczorek correctly states Michigan law, and that the relation back doctrine is applied on a case-by-case basis.
However, I disagree with the result reached by the majority when those principles are applied to the case at bar. An attorney’s knowledge is imputed to the client. Katz v Kowalsky, 296 Mich 164; 295 NW2d 600 (1941).
In the within case, an alleged legal malpractice action, plaintiff’s second attorney stated on the record at the hearing on defendants’ motion for accelerated judgment that his failure to reopen the estate was a negligent oversight on his part.1
Plaintiff never asserted in her reply to defendant Burnard’s motion for accelerated judgment or at the time the motion was argued that she believed that she was the personal representative of decedent’s estate. In June, 1981, plaintiff signed and submitted her final accounting to the probate court. An order allowing the final accounting, assigning the residue of the estate and discharging plaintiff as personal representative was entered on or about June 1, 1981. Plaintiff’s attorney filed this lawsuit on or about February 8, 1983, and filed an amended complaint on March 2, 1983, before the limitations period had run.2_
*495Plaintiff was not reappointed as personal representative of her husband’s estate until May 23, 1984, and the order of reappointment was not entered nunc pro tunc. Since plaintiff has never asserted that she reasonably believed that she was the duly appointed personal representative of her husband’s estate, a remand is unnecessary. Plaintiff has failed to meet the test set out in Wieczorek, supra.
I would affirm.

 The accelerated judgment motion was argued by the attorney whom plaintiff chose to represent her in the legal malpractice action. It was he, and not the attorney who was being sued for legal malpractice, that omitted to have plaintiff reappointed as personal representative of the estate.

 In his answer filed on or about April 18, 1983, defendant Burnard raised the defense of lack of capacity to sue. MCL 600.5805; MSA 27A.5805 sets out a two-year statute of limitations in legal malpractice actions.