2023-11-06 07:00:08
It happens that the lawyer responsible for defending the interests of a client commits a procedural error. The client is then deprived of the case he hoped to win, and sometimes ruined. But he can still request, through a “liability action”, that the lawyer be ordered to compensate him.
To do this, however, it does not have the “rolling” deadline provided for by common law of prescription, five years from the day he became aware of the fault, but only a “fixed” period of five years from the “end of the mission” of the lawyer.
This exceptional regime, provided for in’article 2225 of the civil code, has just been challenged before the Court of Cassation and the Constitutional Council, by two litigants, victims of professional misconduct. The first, Mr. “lapse”, on October 9, 2012, his lawyer, Me Y, not having filed conclusions in time.
Reversal of jurisprudence
After having found another counsel, he assigns Mr. the case law which interprets it “end of mission” as the date of pronouncement of the decision of lapse. He won his case before the Agen Court of Appeal (Lot-et-Garonne), April 6, 2022.
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Before the Court of Cassation, Mr. which here extends the disputed deadline of fifteen days – and avoids prescription. This interpretation is also better combined with other texts which do not place the end of the mission at the pronouncement of the decision.
Making a reversal of jurisprudence, the Court of Cassation admits, June 14 (2023, 22-17.520) : the starting point of the action must be “the expiration of the time limit for appealing against the decision having terminated the proceedings (…) unless relations between the client and his lawyer ceased before this date”. Mr. (Haute-Garonne).
“Corporatist” text
This should not change anything for the second victim, Mrs. Z, who was not aware of the mistakes committed in 2011 by his lawyer, Me W, only five years later (he had notably failed to declare a debt of 780,000 euros to the liquidator of a company). Its action, introduced in 2017, was therefore declared prescribed.
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