Not To Late To Sue

A legal malpractice suit was not time-barred, according to an opinion of the Alaska Supreme Court. 

A client personally financed the sale of his business corporation. His attorney drafted documents that secured the buyer’s debt with corporate stock and an interest in the buyer’s home. Over seven years later the government imposed tax liens on the corporation’s assets; according to the client, it was only then he learned for the first time that his attorney had not provided for a recorded security interest in the physical assets. The client sued the attorney for legal malpractice and violation of the Alaska Unfair Trade Practice and Consumer Protection Act (UTPA).

The superior court held that the statute of limitations barred the client’s claims and granted summary judgment to the attorney. But we conclude that it was not until the tax liens were filed that the client suffered the actual damage necessary for his cause of action to be complete. We therefore reverse the judgment of the superior court and remand the case for further proceedings.

The statute does not begin to run until all elements of the action exist.

In this case the superior court found that Jones was injured when he and Grunwald signed a sale document that failed to secure Jones’s interest in the business assets. The court reasoned that once Jones had contracted for an inadequate security interest, the attorney’s alleged failure to meet his professional duty of care had injured Jones and the malpractice claim accrued.

But Jones did not suffer any appreciable injury at the time the sale documents were signed in 2004. Like the plaintiffs in Austin, Jones received a contract that was less than he allegedly expected it to be, since it failed to give him a security interest in the corporation’s physical assets. But as long as Grunwald substantially abided by his contractual obligations, Jones had no reason to execute on a security interest and therefore suffered no actual injury from being unable to do so.

Nor did Jones suffer an appreciable injury in October 2005, when the escrow manager first notified him that Grunwald had missed a payment. Jones agreed to extend Grunwald’s payments at that time and to work out an alternative arrangement rather than foreclose on the debt. Because the stock purchase agreement allowed this forbearance without waiving “any obligation of Debtor or right of Secured Party,” Jones again suffered no injury. And Grunwald continued to make at least partial or late payments through February 2012. Jones was satisfied with the parties’ arrangement and did not attempt to use any remedies he would have had as a secured party; he therefore continued to suffer no harm from his lack of a security interest.

.Jones did suffer an appreciable injury in late 2011. The IRS recorded liens on Northern Heating’s physical assets on October 31 and November 14 of that year; at that time Jones lost his ability to acquire anything greater than junior lienholder status. Since the legally protected interest at issue was Jones’s ability to recover the corporation’s physical assets in case of the buyer’s default, this was clearly an appreciable injury. We conclude that Jones’s professional malpractice claim accrued on October 31, 2011.

The three-year statute of limitations for the malpractice claim therefore expired on October 31, 2014. Because Jones filed his complaint in December 2013, within the time allowed, it was clear error to find the action barred by the statute of limitations.

(Mike Frisch)