Plaintiff’s legal malpractice claim against the attorneys who drafted her fiancé’s will accrued when she filed an answer to the will contest brought by the fiancé’s surviving relatives. In LaChappelle v. Tual, No. W2024-01234-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. July 18, 2025), the plaintiff had hired defendant attorneys to draft a will…
A legal malpractice claim filed eighteen months after the Court of Appeals affirmed the underlying conviction was time-barred. In Lee v. Richardson, No. M2024-01130-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 21, 2025), the Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of a pro se legal malpractice complaint based on the statute of limitations. The…
Where the defendant in a car accident case received several citations for violations of city traffic laws, the statute of limitations was not extended to two years because the citations were civil in nature, not criminal. In Sandridge v. Henderson, No. W2024-00242-COA-R10-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 19, 2024), the plaintiff…
Where plaintiff’s workers’ compensation attorney received documents that provided notice of a potential HCLA claim, that notice was not imputed to plaintiff because the HCLA claim was not within the scope of the attorney’s representation of plaintiff. In Marc v. Eck, No. E2023-01643-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Aug. 29, 2024), plaintiff…
Tennessee court holds that publicly available information triggered the duty to inquire and claim being barred by the statute of limitations. The Facts In First Community Bank, N.A. v. First Tennessee Bank, N.A., No. E2022-00954-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Feb. 13, 2024), plaintiff bank purchased “approximately $135 million in asset-backed securities…
Where there was a question of fact regarding when plaintiff was put on notice of his potential HCLA claim, and plaintiff provided an expert affidavit in support of his claims, summary judgment based on the statute of limitations and a lack of proof on causation and damages was reversed. In…
Where defendant received a citation for violating a Tennessee municipal ordinance in a car accident, the one-year statute of limitations applied. The limitations period was not extended to two years under Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104(a)(2) because the municipal code violation was not a criminal charge or criminal prosecution. In…
Where a car accident plaintiff filed suit, had service issued but not served, and then failed to have new process issued within one year from the issuance of the first service, the plaintiff could not rely on the fact that defendant received a traffic citation in the accident to extend…
Where a pro se plaintiff knew about defendants’ alleged legal malpractice more than one year before he filed suit, summary judgment based on the statute of limitations was affirmed. In Garrett v. Weiss, No. E2022-01373-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. May 25, 2023), plaintiff filed a legal malpractice claim against defendant attorneys…
Ordinarily and subject to several important exceptions, the statute of limitations in Tennessee personal injury cases is one year. One exception to that rule is Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-3-104(a(2), which addresses situations where the civil defendant faced criminal charges as a result of a incident giving rise to…