Court Opinion

ID: 9860740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 23:31:22.151985+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:26:35.282334
License: Public Domain

HARRIS, Justice
(dissenting).
In all respect, the basis for the majority holding escapes me.
Question: How do we bar a claim that a lawyer was negligent for misunderstanding the rule against perpetuities?
Answer: By pretending lay persons understand it.
*35Plaintiffs are not lawyers; the defendant is. Although plaintiffs would doubtless have some difficulty prevailing on the merits, I would trust a jury to resolve their claim. I would reverse the trial court.
No one should be astonished when a lawyer runs afoul the rule against perpetuities. Notwithstanding its existence for centuries it is inordinately complex. In all jurisdictions generations of lawyers have stubbed professional toes on some protruding ramification of the rule. Indeed the complexity of the rule led one jurisdiction to hold that it could form no basis for a legal malpractice suit, inasmuch as misunderstandings of the rule by lawyers are so commonplace. Lucas v. Hamm, 56 Cal.2d 583, 591, 364 P.2d 685, 690, 15 Cal.Rptr. 821, 826 (1961). An Iowa jury might reach the same conclusion. But a lay person should not be barred from prosecuting a claim based on the rule in a suit against, of all persons, a lawyer.
Although this case is unusual it is not particularly complicated. Our rules on tort claims for malpractice are well settled and, as the majority notes, apply as much to lawyers as to other professions. The discovery rule, also recited by the majority, is deeply woven into the fabric of our law. We should yield to the established rules and give plaintiffs their day in court. The question of when, if ever, plaintiffs should be charged with knowledge of the rule so as to bar their claim under the statute of limitations, should be a fact question for the jury to decide. It is not a question which should be decided by us as a matter of law. The trial court should be reversed.
McCORMICK and LARSON, JJ„ join this dissent.