JESSE E. GRAHAM, APPELLANT,
v.
ROGER W. HOLLER, JR., APPELLEE
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The court held that the plaintiff suffered no damages as a result of the attorney's alleged malpractice, and therefore, the statute of limitations had not been tolled.
Plaintiff sued his former attorney for malpractice, alleging the attorney failed to discover a deed filed prior to closing, resulting in the plaintiff…
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COBB, Judge.
Jesse E. Graham appeals the judgment below awarding appellee/plaintiff, Roger W. Holler, Jr., damages in a legal malpractice action against Graham. Graham contends the trial court erred in failing to grant a directed verdict in his favor based on a statute of limitations defense1 and in awarding Holler certain attorneys’ fees as damages.
Holler sued his former attorney, Graham, on June 27, 1984, alleging that Graham committed malpractice in June, 1979, by failing to obtain a close-out abstract which would have revealed a deed filed immediately prior to closing. Holler further alleged that this resulted in his receiving clear title to only an undivided one-third interest in certain real property, rather than the entire interest for which he had contracted. Had Graham caught the title problem in time, Holler would have been presented with the option of retaining his money or proceeding to close and pursue collateral litigation against the third-party grantees. In point of fact, when the snafu was first discovered Holler was offered his money back by the sellers and declined, electing to pursue the collateral litigation in an effort to obtain clear and undivided ownership of the entire property. Consequently, no damage ensued to Holler as a result of Graham's mistake.
Moreover, since the collateral litigation, irrespective of its outcome, could not have negated Graham's delinquent act (assuming, arguendo, that damages had resulted from it), that litigation did not toll the running of the malpractice statute of limitations. Cf Richards Enterprises, Inc. v. Swofford, 495 So. 2d 1210 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986).
REVERSED.
W.C. ORFINGER, J., and ~i Jr., Associate Judge, concur. . Section 95.11(4)(a), Florida Statutes (1985), provides that the statute of limitations for a professional malpractice action is two years.
Cases With Similar Vibessemantic neighbors from the corpus
Citator
Cited By
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Goodwin v. Alexatos, 584 So. 2d 1007 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991)…by Hiers. Even if Hiers had been slow in eliminating the clouds on the title, the delay must still be the proximate cause of Goodwin’s damages. Lawyers Professional Liability Ins. Co. v. McKenzie, 470 So. 2d 752 (Fla. 3d DCA 1985); Graham v. Holler, 499 So. 2d 62 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986). It is also appropriate to make the observation that when acts of third parties are required, lawyers cannot control, with any degree of precision, the timeliness of performance. We do agree with Goodwin that the trial court err…
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Durlene J. Drake v. Simons, 583 So. 2d 1074 (Fla. 5th DCA 1991)…negative, the statute of limitations begins to run at the time an appellate decision is rendered; otherwise, the applicable statute of limitations would begin when the client knew or should have known of the alleged malpractice. In Graham v. Holler, 499 So. 2d 62, 63 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986), we phrased the question somewhat differently as: Whether the collateral litigation, depending on its outcome, could have negated an attorney’s delinquent act. In Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. v. Lane, 565 So. 2d 1323 (Fla.1…
Authorities Cited
- Richards Enters., Inc. v. Swofford, 495 So. 2d 1210 (Fla. 5th DCA 1986)