WSOR Wins Appeal to Revive Legal Malpractice Lawsuit

September 26, 2023

Recently, Attorneys Daniel E. O'Brien and Bart J. Galvin successfully represented a client in a case heard by Illinois' 1st District Appellate Court. In this case, our client, Comprehensive Marketing, Inc., had filed a legal malpractice lawsuit against a law firm, claiming that the firm's attorneys engaged in fraudulent concealment. While the case had originally been dismissed after the defendant claimed that the statute of limitations had passed, the Appellate Court reversed this decision, allowing the lawsuit to move forward.

This case addressed an opt-out notice that Creative Marketing had used in its communications. While the defendants allegedly informed the company in 2010 that the notice was legally sufficient, this was not true, and Comprehensive Marketing was sued in 2017 for violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1999. Our clients alleged that the defendants concealed the legal deficiency through 2018. When Comprehensive Marketing took legal action against the defendants in 2019, the defendants moved to dismiss the case, arguing that the complaint was barred by the two-year statute of limitations.

The defendants' motion to dismiss was initially granted in 2021, and after a motion to reconsider, another judge granted the motion to dismiss in 2022. However, our firm was able to appeal this ruling. Upon review, a panel of the 1st District Appellate Court found that our client pleaded fraudulent concealment within the appropriate time period. They stated that it was likely true that the defendants were aware that they had provided incorrect legal advice and purposely chose not to inform our clients. By doing so, they intended to keep our clients from discovering that the firm had provided inaccurate legal advice and prevent our clients from filing a legal malpractice claim. This ruling will allow the original lawsuit to be revived so that our clients will be able to pursue the claim against the defendants.