Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A Washington appellate court held that a criminal defendant’s legal negligence claim did not accrue until he obtained postconviction relief during a resentencing proceeding.

John Flynn was convicted of first-degree rape and burglary. The Washington Department of Corrections issued a Presentence Investigation Report, determining that Flynn’s offender scores for the rape and burglary convictions were eight and seven, respectively. The state’s offender score calculation assigned Flynn a score of 13 for the rape conviction and 12 for the burglary conviction, which criminal defense counsel did not contest during Flynn’s sentencing hearing. Flynn was sentenced to 280 months on the rape conviction and 116 months for his burglary conviction.

Flynn appealed his convictions unsuccessfully; however, the state high court later granted his request for collateral relief on the basis that the original sentencing court had erred in calculating his offender score. On remand, the sentencing court recalculated Flynn’s offender score, a new judgment and sentence were entered, and he was released from confinement the following day.

Flynn sued Pierce County, Wash.; his criminal defense counsel; his appellate counsel; and the prosecuting attorney, alleging legal negligence. The defense moved to dismiss, arguing that the plaintiff’s claims were time-barred under the applicable three-year limitations statute. The trial court granted the motion.

The appellate court agreed with Flynn that his claim for legal malpractice had been timely filed. Citing case law, the court found that a negligence claim based on legal malpractice committed in a criminal case requires a plaintiff to have first obtained postconviction relief before establishing proximate cause. Thus, the court found, Flynn could not have brought his malpractice action until he obtained postconviction relief from his sentence because he was unable to dispute the validity of his sentence in a civil tort claim while he was still serving a purportedly valid sentence. Moreover, the court said that Flynn could not have known all of the salient facts regarding his claim until a court invalidated his sentence.

The court nevertheless concluded in an unpublished portion of its opinion that Flynn had not proved that the county was the cause in fact of his injuries. Citing case law, the court determined that the original sentencing court’s erroneous calculation and order constituted a superseding and intervening event that led to Flynn’s harm. Consequently, the court concluded that Flynn’s complaint had been properly dismissed.

Citation: Flynn v. Pierce Cty., 482 P.3d 980 (Wash. Ct. App. 2021).