Plaintiff alleged that Horwood Marcus & Berk (HMB) aided and abetted a breach of fiduciary duty by Nicholas Gouletas and John Cadden.
Legal malpractice is governed by a two-year statute of limitations in Illinois. 735 ILCS 5/13-214.3(b). Breaches of fiduciary duty are governed by a five-year statute of limitations. The question presented was which statute of limitations applies when a lawyer is alleged to have aided and abetted a breach of fiduciary duty. Plaintiff argued that the two-year statute of limitations only applies in legal malpractice cases. The court, relying on the plain language of Section 13-214.3(b) disagreed because the text of the statute does not refer specifically to legal malpractice claims.
The court reasoned as follows:
¶ 13 The two-year statute of limitations in section 13-214.3(b) of the Code provides that it applies to claims “against an attorney arising out of an act or omission in the performance of professional services.” 735 ILCS 5/13-214.3(b) (West 2010). As there is no language in the statute restricting its application to legal malpractice claims or claims brought by an attorney’s client, the plain language of the statute directs that the two-year limitation applies to all claims against an attorney arising out of acts or omissions in the performance of professional services, and not just legal malpractice claims or claims brought against an attorney by a client. Had the legislature intended to restrict the applicability of the statute of limitations to malpractice claims, it could have explicitly done so in the text of the statute as it did when it prohibited the recovery of punitive damages in legal malpractice cases (735 ILCS 5/2-1115 (West 2010)), but chose not to do so in this instance.”
In so holding, the Appellate Court disagreed with a case decided in the Fourth Appellate District, Ganci v. Blauvelt, 294 Ill. App. 3d 508, 515 (1998).