Legal Malpractice

Stay of Statute of Limitations in Legal Malpractice

By (Andrew Lavoott Bluestone)

There are certain stays of the statute of limitations, universally.  Here, in this legal malpractice case plaintiff offered the testimony of a psychologist, probably to prove that plaintiff was unable to commence an action, or protected from the running of the statute of limitations.  It did not work here.Nickel v.  Goldsmith & Tortora, Attorneys at Law, P.C.,2008 NY Slip Op 09570
Decided on December 2, 2008 ,Appellate Division, Second Department .
 

"The Supreme Court correctly, in effect, granted that branch of the defendant's motion which was to dismiss the complaint pursuant to CPLR 3211(a)(5) as time-barred. The plaintiff's cause of action to recover damages for legal malpractice is subject to a three-year statute of limitations (see CPLR 214[6]). Since the cause of action accrued no later than May 2002 and was not interposed until June 2007, it was time-barred (see McCoy v Feinman, 99 NY2d 295, 301; Glamm v Allen, 57 NY2d 87, 93). The toll of the limitations period provided by CPLR 208 is available "to only those individuals who are unable to protect their legal rights because of an over-all inability to function in society" (McCarthy v Volkswagen of Am., 55 NY2d 543, 548; Santo B. v Roman Catholic Archdiocese of N.Y., 51 AD3d 956, 958). The conclusory assertions of the plaintiff's psychologist, who first treated the plaintiff in May 2005, are insufficient to satisfy this standard. "

Full post as published by New York Attorney Malpractice Blog on December 31, 1969 (boomark / email).