Snyder v. Heidelberger

State: Illinois

Docket No: 111052 Official Reports

Case Date: 06/16/2011

Preview:ILLINOIS OFFICIAL REPORTS
Supreme Court

Snyder v. Heidelberger, 2011 IL 111052

Caption in Supreme Court: Docket No. Filed Held (Note: This syllabus
constitutes no part of the opinion of the court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader.)

JUDITH J. SNYDER, Appellee, v. ELLIOT HEIDELBERGER, Appellant. 111052 June 16, 2011 The limitations and repose provisions concerning legal malpractice provide that an action must be brought within two years of the time at which the plaintiff knew or reasonably should have known of the injury, but no more than six years after the act or omission complained of, except where the injury does not occur until the death of the person for whom professional services were rendered, in which case suit may be brought within two years of the demise; and where plaintiff widow, who expected to take the marital premises by virtue of her right of survivorship in a joint tenancy, discovered, on the 2007 death of her husband, that the property was claimed by her stepson, who sought to remove her from the premises, where defendant attorney had been retained by the husband in 1997 to place the premises in joint tenancy and drafted and filed a deed purporting to do so, but it was discovered after the husband's death that title to the property had not been in his name individually, but in the name of a trustee of a land trust whose terms provided that the sole beneficial interest would go to the stepson upon the husband's death, where, in 2008, the plaintiff brought a legal malpractice action against the defendant which was dismissed as filed beyond the statute of repose, but the appellate court reversed, the supreme court affirmed the circuit court, holding that the plaintiff's injury did not occur upon her husband's death when she failed to take a survivor's interest, but in 1997 when the negligent drafting of the deed failed to create a joint tenancy; and the two-year exception for an injury occurring at the death of a client was not applicable.

Decision Under Review

Appeal from the Appellate Court for the Second District, reported at 403 Ill. App. 3d 974; heard in that court on appeal from the Circuit Court of Du Page County, the Hon. Kenneth L. Popejoy, Judge, presiding.

Judgment

Appellate court judgment reversed; circuit court judgment affirmed. Patricia L. Argentati and Shana A. O'Grady, of Mulherin, Rehfeldt & Varchetto, P.C., of Wheaton, for appellant. Timothy J. Klein, of Bloomingdale, for appellee.

Counsel on Appeal

Justices

JUSTICE GARMAN delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion. Chief Justice Kilbride and Justices Thomas, Karmeier, Burke, and Theis concurred in the judgment and opinion. Justice Freeman dissented, with opinion.

OPINION

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