On December 1, 2016, the Court of Special Appeals in an unreported decision found that Stewart A. Sutton’s client had pled sufficient facts in her legal malpractice case against Baltimore lead paint attorney, Saul Kerpelman and his law firm, Kerpelman & Associates, to create a question of fact as to whether the statute of limitations had been tolled. In vacating the dismissal of his client’s legal malpractice lawsuit, Judge Deborah S. Eyler stated that based upon “the facts alleged by Natashia, reasonable jurors could find that her cause of action against Kerpelman for legal malpractice did not accrue until the firm ceased representing her, on December 3, 2012, under the continuation of events doctrine”. The appellate court further found that “Reasonable jurors could find that Natashia could not have discovered the existence of her claim by ordinary diligence because she relied on Kerpelman to advise her of all information that is significant and matter to the matter that is the subject of the relationship, including the existence of a potential malpractice claim for the handing of the 1986 lead paint lawsuit”.
Stewart A. Sutton was interviewed by the Daily Record about the Court of Special Appeal’s decision. Stewart A. Sutton was quoted as saying: “My client, Natashia Woods, had the misfortune of retaining the one attorney in all of Maryland who had the motivation to conceal from her the fact that her 1986 lead paint case against the same landlord had been settled by Mr. Kerpelman for the inadequate amount of $1,000”.
