Ex Parte Seabol

782 So. 2d 212, 2000 WL 1234626
CourtSupreme Court of Alabama
DecidedSeptember 1, 2000
Docket1981885
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 782 So. 2d 212 (Ex Parte Seabol) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Alabama primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte Seabol, 782 So. 2d 212, 2000 WL 1234626 (Ala. 2000).

Opinion

782 So.2d 212 (2000)

Ex parte Patrick SEABOL.
(Re: Patrick Seabol v. Carl Michael Seibert et al.)

1981885.

Supreme Court of Alabama.

September 1, 2000.

Jimmy Alexander, James M. Corder, Robert M. Baker, and Mitchell K. Shelly of Alexander, Corder, Plunk, Baker & Shelly, P.C., Athens, for petitioner.

W. David Niochols and John L. Bodie of Hoover Law Center, Birmingham, for respondent Carl Michael Seibert.

Brant A. Young of Cox, Young & Griffin, Florence, for respondents SunTrust Bank, Alabama, N.A., and Jack Johnson.

*213 On Application for Rehearing

COOK, Justice.

The opinion of May 26, 2000, is withdrawn, and the following is substituted therefor.

On September 17, 1996, Patrick Seabol sued Carl Michael Seibert, alleging legal-service liability pursuant to § 6-5-570, Ala.Code 1975, and seeking a sale of certain real estate for a division of the proceeds. On September 5, 1997, Seabol amended his complaint to include as defendants Suntrust Alabama[*] (formerly known as The First Bank of Florence, Alabama) and Jack Johnson and to add a third count alleging claims of fraud, fraudulent suppression, and conspiracy to defraud. Seibert, Suntrust, and Johnson each moved for a summary judgment. The trial court granted each defendant's summary-judgment motion, on the basis that the claims were barred by the statute of limitations. The Court of Civil Appeals, on March 19, 1999, affirmed, without an opinion. Seabol v. Seibert, 776 So.2d 225 (Ala.Civ.App. 1999) (table).

The materials before the trial court when it entered the defendants' summary judgments, viewed most favorably to the plaintiff, suggest the following facts. On January 21, 1988, Seabol executed and delivered a promissory note to Suntrust in the amount of $50,000. The note was secured by a real-estate mortgage, which encumbered six acres of land in Florence. On January 29, 1988, eight days after Seabol had executed the promissory note, Suntrust advanced Seabol $25,000. Suntrust advanced money again on June 17, 1988, in the amount of $5,000. From August 5, 1988, through June 15, 1990, Suntrust advanced Seabol, in a number of transactions, a total of $45,430.67. The mortgage and promissory note to Suntrust were for $50,000 and contained no provision to secure future advances. Therefore, the mortgage did not constitute a valid lien on the six acres of land with regard to any of the future advances.

In March 1993, Seabol contacted Seibert, an attorney, for information on how to delay Suntrust's threatened foreclosure on the six acres pursuant to the January 21, 1988, mortgage. Seibert never informed Seabol of the possibility that the lien could be invalid. On March 22, 1988, Seibert prepared and filed for Seabol a voluntary petition for Chapter 13 bankruptcy. The Chapter 13 petition listed the six acres as having a collateral value of $200,000. Seabol alleges that Seibert forged Seabol's signature on three of the supporting documents filed with the bankruptcy petition.

While the bankruptcy proceedings were pending, Seibert told Seabol that Suntrust could immediately foreclose on the six acres and that he, Seibert, was willing to buy the land. Seibert agreed to pay $95,000, and Seabol stopped looking for other potential buyers. Two weeks later, Seibert told Seabol that he could only pay $75,000, but that Seabol needed to do something with the land immediately; otherwise, Seibert told him, he could lose everything.

Seibert arranged to meet with Seabol and Jack Johnson (a banker with Suntrust) at a Suntrust office on July 22, 1993. At that meeting, Seibert told Seabol that he would pay for the six acres only the amount of the outstanding promissory note and mortgage (approximately $50,000). *214 Seabol objected to the change in price, but Seibert stated that Suntrust could foreclose on the mortgage immediately, and, therefore, that Seabol really had no choice but to sell the six acres to him. Seabol sold him the six acres for $50,000. Seibert sold the six acres, in December 1993, for $129,000.

Seibert never disclosed to the bankruptcy court that he was negotiating with Seabol to buy the six acres. Seabol's bankruptcy proceedings did not close until August 24, 1993.

Seabol claims that Seibert, Johnson, and Suntrust knew at the time of the sale that the mortgage was invalid, but fraudulently represented to him that the mortgage did constitute a valid lien that could be immediately enforced.

I.

Seabol's claim against Seibert comes within the definition of "legal service liability action" provided in § 6-5-572(1), Ala. Code 1975:

"Any action against a legal service provider in which it is alleged that some injury or damage was caused in whole or in part by the legal service provider's violation of the standard of care applicable to a legal service provider. A legal service liability action embraces all claims for injuries or damages or wrongful death whether in contract or in tort and whether based on an intentional or unintentional act or omission. A legal services liability action embraces any form of action in which a litigant may seek legal redress for a wrong or an injury and every legal theory of recovery, whether common law or statutory, available to a litigant in a court in the State of Alabama now or in the future."

The limitations period for any action coming within the definition provided in § 6-5-572(1) is prescribed by § 6-5-574(a):

"All legal service liability actions against a legal service provider must be commenced within two years after the act or omission or failure giving rise to the claim, and not afterwards; provided, that if the cause of action is not discovered and could not reasonably have been discovered within such period, then the action may be commenced within six months from the date of such discovery or the date of discovery of facts which would reasonably lead to such discovery, whichever is earlier; provided, further, that in no event may the action be commenced more than four years after such act or omission or failure; except, that an act or omission or failure giving rise to a claim which occurred before August 1, 1987, shall not in any event be barred until the expiration of one year from such date."

Under § 6-5-574, "a legal-malpractice cause of action accrues, and the statute-of-limitations period begins to run, when `the act or omission or failure giving rise to the claim' occurs, and not when the client first suffers actual damage." Ex parte Panell, 756 So.2d 862, 868 (Ala.1999). Thus, the running of the limitations period is tolled until the client discovers, or reasonably should discover, the attorney's act or omission or failure. Section 6-5-574(a) further provides that any action filed beyond the two-year limit "must be filed within four years of the wrongful act or omission, regardless of whether the client has suffered damage." Ex parte Panell, 756 So.2d at 867. Therefore, Seabol, at the most, had four years in which to file his claim against Seibert.

In Leighton Avenue Office Plaza, Ltd. v. Campbell, 584 So.2d 1340 (Ala.1991), this Court stated:

"The `saving provision' applicable in fraud actions generally, Ala.Code 1975, *215 § 6-2-3, is also, under § 6-5-574(b), applicable in legal malpractice actions based on allegations of fraud. Section 6-2-3 provides:

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782 So. 2d 212, 2000 WL 1234626, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-seabol-ala-2000.