Division III of the Washington Court of Appeals in Spokane recently affirmed the dismissal of a legal malpractice claim as time-barred in Wood v. Dunn & Black, P.S., 2024 WL 4234248 (Wn. App. Sept. 19, 2024) (unpublished). While not treading any new legal ground, Wood is an interesting illustration of how a client’s criticism of a law firm’s work can factor into the statute of limitation if the client doesn’t timely move forward with a formal claim.
The law firm in Wood had represented a couple for over two years in construction litigation before eventually withdrawing. In response to the law firm’s notice of intent to withdraw in March 2019, the clients wrote the law firm a lengthy letter a few days later detailing the clients’ criticism of the law firm. Three years later, the by-then former clients filed a malpractice claim against the law firm echoing the same criticisms included in their letter. The limitation period for legal malpractice claims in Washington is three years and generally begins to run when the attorney-client relationship comes to an end. The trial court found that the Woods’ malpractice claim was just beyond the limitation period and dismissed their claim. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
In doing so, the Court of Appeals noted the statute of limitation for legal malpractice has a “discovery rule” that can extend the three-year period if the client does not learn of facts supporting a claim until beyond the three years. The Court of Appeals explained, however, that even taking the discovery rule into account, the limitation period begins to run when a client learns facts giving rise to a claim—not necessarily all of the details or the full extent of damage. The Court of Appeals attached the Woods’ letter as an appendix to its opinion and pointed to its detailed critique of the law firm’s work as easily meeting this standard for beginning the limitation period. In short, if a client criticizes a law firm’s work, that may be enough to start the three-year clock for a legal malpractice claim once their relationship terminates.
