Opinion
Submitted January 20, 2000
March 6, 2000
In an action, inter alia, to recover money due on mortgage notes, the defendants Jerrold P. Rosenthal and Rosenthal Curry appeal from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Nassau County (DiNoto, J.), dated March 30, 1999, as denied that branch of their motion which was to dismiss the causes of action to recover damages for legal malpractice as time-barred.
Rosenthal Curry, East Meadow, N.Y. (Edward M. Rosenthal of counsel), for appellants.
FRED T. SANTUCCI, J.P., MYRIAM J. ALTMAN, WILLIAM D. FRIEDMANN, GLORIA GOLDSTEIN, JJ.
DECISION ORDER
ORDERED that the order is reversed insofar as appealed from, with costs, and that branch of the appellants' motion which was to dismiss the plaintiff's causes of action to recover damages for legal malpractice as time-barred is granted.
The plaintiff commenced this action against, among others, the appellants Jerrold P. Rosenthal and Rosenthal Curry, alleging legal malpractice arising from representation provided in 1987 and 1988 on two loan transactions. The plaintiff alleged that he did not learn until 1998, after defaults on the loans, that the appellants failed to record two mortgages executed to secure the loans. Before issue was joined, the appellants moved, inter alia, to dismiss those claims as time-barred. We now grant that relief.
Pursuant to CPLR 214(6), an action to recover damages for legal malpractice must be commenced within three years of the accrual of the claim. A claim to recover damages for legal malpractice accrues when the malpractice is committed, not when it is discovered (see, Santulli v. Englert, Reilly McHugh, 78 N.Y.2d 700 ; Glamm v. Allen, 57 N.Y.2d 87 ; Kuritzky v. Sirlin Sirlin, 231 A.D.2d 607 ; Tal-Spons Corp. v. Nurnberg, 213 A.D.2d 395 ). Here, the legal malpractice complained of occurred more than three years before the commencement of this action, and the Statute of Limitations was not tolled by the continuous representation doctrine (see, Santulli v. Englert, Reilly McHugh, supra; Glamm v. Allen, supra; Kuritzky v. Sirlin Sirlin, supra; Tal-Spons Corp. v. Nurnberg, supra; Luk Lamellen U. Kupplungbau GmbH v. Lerner, 166 A.D.2d 505 ). Accordingly, the plaintiff's claims of legal malpractice should have been dismissed as time-barred.
SANTUCCI, J.P., ALTMAN, FRIEDMANN, and GOLDSTEIN, JJ., concur.