Court Opinion

ID: 9695885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:30:56.647784+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:17.102978
License: Public Domain

Caporale, J.,
concurring.
I agree with the resolution reached in this case but write separately because I think the tenor of the majority’s opinion *643exalts the holdings of Interholzinger v. Estate of Dent, 214 Neb. 264, 333 N.W.2d 895 (1983), and Smith v. Ganz, 219 Neb. 432, 363 N.W.2d 526 (1985), to a level they do not deserve. The majority, by saying “[e]ven if the court was inclined to consider modifying the [.Interholzinger-Smith] rule, it would not do so under the facts and circumstances of this case,” seems to cite those cases for the proposition that a client necessarily becomes aware of a defectively drawn document by being given an opportunity to read it, irrespective of the nature of the defect. Neither Interholzinger nor Smith so holds.
The relevant act of malpractice claimed in Interholzinger was that the attorney had not, as contemplated, excluded certain real property from the operation of an agreement to sell a corporation. In deciding that the malpractice action was time barred, we said that the client had to have known of that failure when he, after the purchaser of the corporation defaulted, signed an agreement listing the subject property for sale as an asset of the corporation. In Smith, we said that a cotenant was obligated to inquire about and know the rights of his cotenant in real estate. Limited to their facts, Interholzinger and Smith stand only for the proposition that for purposes of determining when an action for alleged legal malpractice begins to run, a client must know what lay persons of ordinary intelligence are deemed to know. That is a far cry from saying that in every instance a client has knowledge of his or her attorney’s malpractice at the time he or she is given the opportunity to read a document the attorney drew, irrespective of the nature of the malpractice claimed. Were that so, lay persons would need to be as sophisticated in the law as lawyers are required to be. The cardinal rule remains, as the majority acknowledges, that the point at which a statute of limitations begins to run must be determined from the facts of each case. McCook Equity Exch. v. Cooperative Serv. Co., 230 Neb. 758, 433 N.W.2d 509 (1988).
In this case the plaintiffs knew the transaction was not secured and made an informed business decision to proceed on the strength of certain guaranties. Moreover, their unsecured position was confirmed for them by another lawyer more than a year before they instituted suit. What plaintiffs are really *644claiming is that their attorney somehow should have prevented them from making what subsequently proved to be a bad business decision. That is patent nonsense.
Shanahan, J., joins in this concurrence.