Janet Schroer Successfully Defends Statute of Repose for Legal Malpractice

Janet Schroer prevailed in a legal malpractice case in the Oregon Supreme Court in 2023, in Marshall v. Schwabe, 371 Or 536 (2023), which affirmed the trial court’s dismissal of the case as barred by the statute of repose.  The court held that Oregon’s 10-year statute of repose in ORS 12.115 applies to legal malpractice cases which allege only economic damages—here, legal fees, financial losses, and over $20 million in back taxes and penalties and interest. The Supreme Court remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to address plaintiffs’ arguments that even if the repose statute applies, the case was still timely based on the continuous relationship exception to the statute of repose.

Janet prevailed again on remand in Marshall v. Schwabe, 334 Or App 751 (2024), where the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the case as barred by the statute of repose, holding that there was no continuous relationship exception to ORS 12.115, because the text of the statute made no mention of any exception or any allowance for tolling, and that Oregon law does not recognize a continuing mandatory duty for lawyers to correct past mistakes based only on the fact of an ongoing relationship. Because the firm’s alleged negligence conduct occurred more than 10 years prior to filing of the malpractice complaint, the matter was time barred since no independent negligent acts were alleged to have occurred within the repose period that caused the alleged damages.