Judge: Michael Small, Case: 23STCV18656, Date: 2024-09-04 Tentative Ruling

Inform the clerk if you submit on the tentative ruling. If moving and opposing parties submit, no appearance is necessary.

Case Number: 23STCV18656    Hearing Date: September 4, 2024    Dept: 57

The Defendants' demurrer to the Plaintiff's First Amended Complaint ("the FAC") is overruled. 

The demurrer is based entirely on the proposition that the Plaintiff's two claims in the FAC, one for legal malpractice and the other for breach of fiduciary duty, are barred by the applicable one-year statute of limitations in Code of Civil Procedure Section 340.6.  Plaintiff filed this action on August 7, 2023.  Plaintiff alleges in the FAC that the statute of limitations on his claims began to run when the Defendants ceased representing Plaintiff in the underlying action that gives rise to Plaintiff's suit against the Defendants on June 24, 2022, and that on August 9, 2022, Plaintiff and the Defendants entered into an agreement to toll the statute of limitations on Plaintiff's claims for a year, until August 9, 2023.  From there, Plaintiff alleges that the filing of the action on August 7, 2023 preceded the expiration of the tolling agreement, and thus Plaintiff has avoided the statute of limitations. 

Defendants' demurrer tells a different story. According to the Defendants, the statute of limitations on the Plaintiffs' claims began to run at the latest on May 11, 2021 and expired a year later on May 11, 2022, rendering the August 9, 2022 tolling agreement a nullity. 

The problem for the Defendants is the parties' competing versions of events bearing on the accrual of the Plaintiffs' claim for purposes of the commencement of the statute of limitations manifests a factual dispute that cannot be resolved at the pleading stage.  It is possible that the Defendants will have a strong statute of limitations argument at the summary judgment stage.  But their demurrer necessarily founders on the shoals of the factual dispute at this early juncture in the case.


The Defendants' motion to strike the prayers in the FAC for punitive and exemplary damages is granted with leave to amend.  The FAC is devoid of allegations of intentionally fraudulent, malicious, or oppressive conduct on the part of the Defendants that would support the award of  punitive or exemplary damages in connection with the Plaintiff's claim against the Defendants for breach of fiduciary duty.  Nor can Plaintiff obtain punitive damages in connection with his claim against the Defendants for legal malpractice, which sounds in negligence, not in an intentional tort.  Plaintiff is directed to serve and file a Second Amended Complaint by September 28, 2024.