What is the range of damages for emotional distress caused by an attorney's failure to file a lawsuit within the applicable statute of limitations?

California, United States of America


The following excerpt is from Pleasant v. Celli, 16 Cal.App.4th 675, 20 Cal.Rptr.2d 138 (Cal. App. 1993):

Unlike medical malpractice, in which the defendant's wrongdoing usually has a direct and devastating foreseeable effect on the plaintiff's physical and mental well-being, legal malpractice presents a more difficult case for emotional distress damages. Generally, the only foreseeable impact on the plaintiff from an attorney's wrongdoing is an economic loss. It is foreseeable that the plaintiff would be annoyed and inconvenienced by the attorney's failure, for example, to file suit within the applicable statute of limitations. However, the disappointment one might feel upon learning that counsel has missed a filing deadline falls far short of the shock, fright, mortification, humiliation, grief, anxiety or nervousness which characterize the cases imposing liability for negligent infliction of emotional distress. (See Thing v. La Chusa (1989) 48 Cal.3d 644, 648-649, 257 Cal.Rptr. 865, 771 P.2d 814.)

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