See R.I.Gen. Laws § 6A-2-725. See also Blue Ribbon Beef Co., Inc. v. Napolitano, 696 A.2d 1225, 1228 (R.I. 1997); Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 651 A.2d 731, 733 (R.I. 1994); United States v. Skidmore, Owings Merrill, 505 F. Supp. 1101, 1104 n. 3 (S.D.N.Y. 1981). GFI argues that its cause of action accrued when it incurred damages.
In Rhode Island legal malpractice actions, "the cause of action accrues when the allegedly negligent omission by the attorney should have been discovered in the exercise of reasonable diligence, rather than when the court rendered the adverse decision that injured the client." Hill v. Rhode Island State Employees' Retirement Bd., 935 A.2d 608, 617-18 (R.I. 2007) (quoting Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 651 A.2d 731, 733-34 (R.I. 1994)). Over a year passed between D'Addario's failure to file the transcript and when the Debtor filed the petition for bankruptcy; reasonable diligence on the part of the Debtor in the interim could have alerted him to possible negligence on the part of D'Addario.
Additionally, this Court has decided in a legal malpractice case that the cause of action accrues when the allegedly negligent omission by the attorney should have been discovered in the exercise of reasonable diligence, rather than when the court rendered the adverse decision that injured the client. Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 651 A.2d 731, 733-34 (R.I. 1994). Our holding today is consistent with a very recent decision of the United States Supreme Court in Wallace v. Koto, ___ U.S. ___, 127 S.Ct. 1091, 166 L.Ed.2d 973 (2007), in which the Supreme Court declared that the statute of limitations in a lawsuit seeking damages pursuant to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, arising from an alleged unlawful arrest, began to run when the legal process was initiated against the plaintiff.
When a "statute is unambiguous on its face and expresses a clear and sensible meaning, this [C]ourt must interpret the statute according to the plain and literal meaning contained therein." Id. (quoting Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 651 A.2d 731, 733 (R.I. 1994)). An examination of the definition statutes reveals that they are clear and unambiguous.
This subsection provides an exception to the general three-year requirement and has come to be known as the discovery rule. See Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 651 A.2d 731, 733 (R.I. 1994). In this case the trial justice determined, however, that the discovery rule was not applicable to the case facts and should not be applied.
It is well settled that when a "statute is unambiguous on its face and expresses a clear and sensible meaning, this court must interpret the statute according to the plain and literal meaning contained therein." Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 651 A.2d 731, 733 (R.I. 1994). With the foregoing principles in mind, this court concludes that § 27-34-6 is clear and unambiguous.
Zanni, 13 A.3d at 1072.See also Mendes v. Factor, 41 A.3d 994 (R.I. 2012) (in holding that the discovery rule was inapplicable to the plaintiffs' cause of action against their attorneys, the Supreme Court finds that the plaintiffs were aware of the acts they alleged in their complaint by 1987, notwithstanding the plaintiffs' contention that the "true nature and scope of the causes of action did not become sufficiently clear to [them] until 2008"); Guay v. Dolan, 685 A.2d 269, 271 (R.I. 1996) (Supreme Court affirms trial court's finding that if the plaintiff had exercised reasonable diligence in attempting to obtain copies of purportedly deficient jury instructions, the plaintiff would have discovered the acts of alleged malpractice well before the date he actually received those copies, and therefore the statute of limitations began to run no later than the last day of the trial in which the jury instructions were delivered); Penn-Dutch Kitchens, Inc. v. Grady, 6551 A.2d 731 (R.I. 1994) (Supreme Court holds that plaintiff's legal malpractice action against his attorney was time-barred after finding that the plaintiff should have known about the defendant's alleged negligent failure to timely file a writ of attachment by the time his other attorney conceded as much in bankruptcy court-not at the time the plaintiff allegedly suffered his injury on the date the bankruptcy court rendered its final decision). Pilgrim argues that the Plaintiffs' claims against it are barred by § 9-1-14.3 because the property transfer to Boulder Brook Development occurred on August 15, 2005, and the Plaintiffs did not file their complaint against Pilgrim until March and April 2010-almost five years later.