Legal deadlines can make or break a case, and a recent California appellate decision underscores this critical point.
Shenefield v. Kovtun (Fourth Appellate District, November 20, 2024) reminds us to make sure that if you are a defendant, you must plead the correct and appropriate statute of limitation code section as an affirmative defense at the very first opportunity, or it is waived.
In this case, the plaintiff sued a lawyer for a variety of wrongs, some of which might have been time barred under CCP § 340.6(a), providing for a one-year period of limitations. The lawyer’s first response to the complaint was an anti-SLAPP motion, which did not mention CCP § 340.6(a), although it did rely on that defense in a subsequent anti-SLAPP motion. Although the lawyer also raised the statute of limitations as an affirmative defense in her answer, she did not specifically cite § 340.6(a). The court concluded that she waived the defense. The upshot here is: if there is the slightest chance that a claim could possibly be time barred, you must absolutely plead it at the very first opportunity and specify exactly which statute of limitation code section applies.
This decision serves as a stark reminder that in civil litigation, precision matters. Practitioners should carefully review all potential statute of limitations defenses before filing any responsive pleading and ensure that each applicable code section is specifically cited. The consequences of overlooking this detail, as demonstrated in Shenefield, can be irreversible.
Here’s a link to the full decision: https://www.courts.ca.gov/opinions/documents/D083018.PDF
