McBurney v. Teixeira
| Decision Date | 15 June 2005 |
| Docket Number | No. 2000-283-Appeal.,2000-283-Appeal. |
| Citation | 875 A.2d 439 |
| Parties | John F. McBURNEY v. Armand A. TEIXEIRA. |
| Court | Rhode Island Supreme Court |
John F. McBurney, for Plaintiff.
John T. Walsh, Jr., Providence, for Defendant.
Present: WILLIAMS, C.J., GOLDBERG, FLAHERTY, SUTTELL, and ROBINSON, JJ.
The plaintiff, John F. McBurney, Esq., brought a lawsuit against the defendant, Armand A. Teixeira, Esq., alleging that he intentionally interfered with a contractual relationship between the plaintiff and a former client. The trial justice granted summary judgment in favor of the defendant on the grounds that the plaintiff's claim was barred by the applicable statute of limitations; the plaintiff appealed. The matter was consolidated for oral argument with McBurney v. Roszkowski, 875 A.2d 428 (R.I.2005), pursuant to an order directing all parties to appear and show cause why the issues in the respective appeals should not summarily be decided. After considering the arguments of counsel and examining the memoranda filed by the parties, we are of the opinion that cause has not been shown and that the case should be decided at this time. For the reasons stated below, we deny the plaintiff's appeal and affirm the Superior Court judgment.
We decide this case contemporaneously with McBurney v. Roszkowski, which, although a distinct legal dispute, shares a common factual background with the present appeal. For that reason, we will set forth only those facts necessary to the disposition of the issues raised in the present appeal. The reader may refer to that companion case for a fuller factual background of the somewhat extensive history of this and kindred matters.
On June 25, 1987, Shirley Salerno Bergeron sustained personal injury when she was involved in a car accident. As a result, she retained the legal representation of McBurney, a veteran attorney in Rhode Island, with whom she entered into an attorney-client contingency fee contract. Around the same time, the defendant, Joseph J. Roszkowski, another senior member of the bar in Rhode Island, was appointed to represent Bergeron as an indigent defendant in a wholly unrelated criminal matter then pending in the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island.
The plaintiff alleges that while serving as Bergeron's counsel in that criminal matter, Roszkowski made a number of false representations to Bergeron regarding the manner in which plaintiff was handling her personal injury suit. McBurney claims that as a result of the comments, Bergeron rejected a settlement offer negotiated by plaintiff, terminated her relationship with him, and hired Roszkowski to handle the case. After first suing Bergeron for unpaid legal fees, plaintiff eventually filed suit against Roszkowski in June 1994, alleging an intentional interference with a contractual relationship.
One day after the trial began on plaintiff's claim against Roszkowski, the parties agreed to settle the case.1 A judgment stipulation was entered, after which a document entitled "General Release and Confidentiality Agreement" was executed and signed by the parties. Roszkowski also paid the settlement amount to McBurney. However, four months later, on July 16, 1999, plaintiff filed a "motion to correct the record," claiming that he had not consented to the terms of the judgment stipulation. A justice of the Superior Court denied the motion and plaintiff appealed.
While that matter was on appeal, plaintiff initiated this cause of action against the defendant, Armand A. Teixeira. In his complaint, which was filed on March 22, 2000, McBurney alleged that Teixeira, while working as an associate of Roszkowski, also interfered with plaintiff's contractual relationship with Bergeron by making a number of false statements to her about plaintiff's handling of her personal injury case. As a result, plaintiff alleged, Bergeron discharged him and retained defendant. According to plaintiff, Teixeira made the alleged misrepresentations in early April 1990.
Teixeira promptly moved for summary judgment. He first argued that McBurney's claim was barred by the broad language of the McBurney-Roszkowski release, which specifically released not only Roszkowski, but his firm, his associates, and his attorneys, among others, from any claim that was brought or could have been brought in connection with plaintiff's claim against Roszkowski. Teixeira also maintained that McBurney had brought suit beyond the ten-year statute of limitations that applied to his claim.
In response, plaintiff maintained that the general release and confidentiality agreement was a legal nullity because the signatures on the document, which purported to be those of plaintiff, were, in fact, forged. Secondly, plaintiff maintained that his cause of action against Teixeira was separate and distinct from that brought against Roszkowski, and that it accrued on or about April 6, 1990. Thus, McBurney urged that his suit against Teixeira was initiated within the ten-year statute of limitations. Importantly, McBurney soon thereafter supplemented his then-pending appeal in the Roszkowski case by filing a memorandum detailing his allegation that the general release and confidentiality agreement had been forged.
The motion justice granted Teixeira's motion for summary judgment, but solely on the grounds that his claim was brought after the ten-year statute of limitations had expired. In her decision, the motion justice specifically declined to pass on whether the release would also support summary dismissal of plaintiff's case, noting that plaintiff had raised the validity of the release before this Court in the Roszkowski appeal. Nevertheless, plaintiff appealed the summary dismissal of his suit against Teixeira.2 For the following reasons, we affirm the judgment of the Superior Court.
On appeal, plaintiff contends that the motion justice erred in granting summary judgment in favor of defendant because plaintiff's cause of action accrued on April 3, 1990, and was commenced within the applicable ten-year statute of limitations. We need not reach this issue. Rather, based on our holding today in Roszkowski, we are of the opinion that plaintiff's suit against Teixeira is barred by the clear and unambiguous language of the general release and confidentiality agreement between plaintiff and Joseph P. Roszkowski.
That release, which was executed in March 1999, contains the following relevant provisions:
"KNOW ALL MEN THAT JOHN F. McBURNEY, JR., and MCBURNEY LAW SERVICES, INC., a professional corporation (hereinafter `Releasors'), in consideration of the sum of * * *, to them paid by ATTORNEY JOSEPH J. ROSZKOWSKI, and ZIMMERMAN, ROSZKOWSKI & BRENNER, ATTORNEYS, their heirs, executors, representatives, agents, employees, attorneys, affiliates, associates, insurance carriers, successors and assigns (hereinafter `Releasees'), the receipt whereof is...
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