A Future Legal Malpractice Claim is Found to be Released in a Prior Settlement between a Lawyer and his Client
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court recently held that a release entered into between a lawyer and his former client as part of a settlement of a prior legal malpractice claim applies to a second separate legal malpractice case that the same client filed against the lawyer several years after the release was signed, not-with-standing the fact that at the time the release was drafted, the future claim had not yet accrued.
In it's decision, the court reasoned that specific language in a release referring to a particular dispute does not limit or nullify broad language releasing all other claims. The court went on to hold that even though at the time the release was signed the second claim had not accrued for purposes of statute of limitation, the release still applied because the underlying harm that gave rise to the second claim was "known" at the time the release was executed. Eck v. Godbout, 2005 WL 1684030 (Mass., July 21, 2005).