Pinkerton v. West, 76-1882
| Decision Date | 20 December 1977 |
| Docket Number | No. 76-1882,76-1882 |
| Citation | 353 So.2d 102 |
| Parties | Janet Hedke PINKERTON, Appellant, v. G. Anthony WEST, Appellee. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
This is an appeal from a summary final judgment rendered in favor of an attorney who successfully pled the statute of limitations in a suit against him for legal malpractice. We reverse and remand.
This appeal stems from a representation of the appellant client by the appellee Florida lawyer in efforts to enforce, in Florida, a Michigan order for alimony arrearages. The basic mis-advice to his client was that she should accept an offered settlement, or her ex-husband would respond by declaring bankruptcy, in which case she would receive nothing. Believing this advice she settled and then later, after a period of more than two years had gone by since the advice was given, was told by a California lawyer that the advice was erroneous, as indeed it was. A suit followed which she lost because of Florida Statute § 95.11(4)(a) (1975) which reads, in part:
4. WITHIN TWO YEARS
(a) An action for professional malpractice, other than medical malpractice, whether founded on contract or tort provided that the period of limitations shall run from the time the cause of action is discovered or should have been discovered with the exercise of due diligence.
The appellant argues that under the above statutory language the two year period did not begin to run until she discovered from the California lawyer that Florida counsel had given her erroneous information. Florida counsel responds that she knew or should have known because, more than two years before the suit was filed, she:
(1) read an article informing her that bankruptcy does not discharge alimony.
(2) wrote letters to her attorney questioning his competence, his ethics and hinting that she might switch lawyers.
In support of this argument, Florida counsel cites Henzel v. Fink, 340 So.2d 1262 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1976), where that court held that the trial tactics of counsel revealed "obvious errors" about which the client did nothing for over two years. However in that case the aggrieved client knew all he was ever going to know at the time the obvious errors occurred and then did nothing for the full statutory period. This being so, we find it...
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Calder v. Uwanawich, 83-1151
...whether the fraud alleged should then have been discovered by Calder through the exercise of due diligence. In Pinkerton v. West, 353 So.2d 102 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977), cert. denied, 365 So.2d 715 (Fla.1978), the client, Pinkerton, retained West, an attorney, to enforce in this state a foreign ......
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Byers v. Burleson, 82-2126
...became fully aware that he or she had been victimized. An appraisal of the full testimony is generally called for"); Pinkerton v. West, 353 So.2d 102 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.1977) (when attorney's negligence became known to the client determines the applicability of the statute of limitations to p......
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...buyer based on fraud by the seller in inducing the buyer to execute legal documents drawn by the seller's attorney.9 Pinkerton v. West, 353 So.2d 102 (Fla. 4th DCA 1977), cert. denied, 365 So.2d 715 (Fla.1978), is another malpractice case involving legal advice.10 This date was within the t......
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