Thomas Traumann v. James Funt

NOT PRECEDENTIAL UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ___________ No. 24-2599 __________ THOMAS TRAUMANN, Appellant v. JAMES A. FUNT; CAROLINE A. CINQUANTO ____________________________________ On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania (D.C. Civil Action No. 2:24-cv-00486) District Judge: Honorable Joshua D. Wolson ____________________________________ Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a) June 18, 2025 Before: HARDIMAN, MATEY, and CHUNG, Circuit Judges (Opinion filed: June 24, 2025) ___________ OPINION * ___________ PER CURIAM

Appellant Thomas Traumann appeals the District Court order dismissing his complaint as barred by the statute of limitations. Because the District Court properly dismissed the complaint as time barred, we will affirm.

I.

Traumann brought his complaint against his former criminal defense lawyers, James Funt and Caroline Cinquanto, on January 30, 2024. He filed the operative amended complaint in June 2024, which alleged tortious legal malpractice, among other claims. Appellees moved to dismiss the complaint. The District Court dismissed Traumann’s complaint, finding that it was barred by Pennsylvania’s two-year statute of limitations for criminal legal malpractice claims. 1 Traumann timely appealed. 2 II.

On appeal, Traumann argues that the District Court erred in determining the statute of limitations on his legal malpractice claims began to run no later than July 6, 2021, the date he filed his pro se Compassionate Release Motion. Traumann contends that Pennsylvania’s doctrine of fraudulent concealment and discovery rule equitably tolled the statute of limitation until February 2022, “when the injury was brought to his attention by his prison legal advisors,” thus making his complaint timely.

Under Pennsylvania law, legal malpractice claims sounding in tort or “trespass” have a two-year statute of limitations. 42 Pa. C.S. § 5524(7); see also Bailey v. Tucker, 621 A.2d 108, 116 n.17 (Pa. 1993). The statute of limitations begins to run “at the time the harm is suffered or, if appropriate, at the time the alleged malpractice is discovered.”

Bailey, 621 A.2d at 115 (citation omitted). Specifically, for criminal legal malpractice claims, the injury is the conviction, and is deemed to have occurred at the time of sentencing. Id. at 116. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court appreciated that defendants may not immediately know whether it was their own actions or their attorney’s actions that caused the injury. Id. It thus held that “the appropriate starting point [for the statute of limitations] [wa]s the termination of the attorney-client relationship, since at that point the aggrieved defendant is aware of the injury (i.e., the conviction), and is on clear notice to investigate any alternate cause of that harm which he believes to exist.” Id.; see also Robbins & Seventko Orthopedic Surgeons, Inc. v. Geisenberger, 674 A.2d 244, 247–48 (Pa. Super. Ct. 1996) (explaining that Bailey “applied the discovery rule tolling the statute of limitations until the defendant became aware that his attorney was responsible for the harm,” which “occurred when the attorney client relationship was terminated”).

Here, the District Court properly determined that the statute of limitations began to run no later than July 6, 2021, the date the criminal trial court docket reflects Traumann filed his pro se Compassionate Release Motion. 3 Traumann argues that date is irrelevant to the question of the statute of limitations because his motion did not attack his conviction or his attorneys’ action. However, his filing of a pro se motion indicates that by that date, Appellees’ representation of him had ceased, and thus created “the appropriate starting point” for the statute of limitations. See Bailey, 621 A.2d at 116 (“On November 3, 1978, appellant filed a pro se petition to vacate his sentence.

Accordingly, at least as of that date, appellee [attorney’s] services had been terminated, and the statute of limitations . . . had begun to run.”).

Traumann’s arguments regarding the discovery rule and the doctrine of fraudulent concealment are similarly unavailing. He argues that he could not have brought his claims until he learned in prison about an amendment to his statute of conviction. 4 But Robbins explained that Bailey already “applied the discovery rule” when it tolled the statute of limitations in criminal legal malpractice claims from the date of sentencing to the date when the attorney-client relationship is terminated. See Robbins, 674 A.2d at 247–48. Moreover, “[t]he polestar of the Pennsylvania discovery rule is not a plaintiff’s actual acquisition of knowledge,” DiDomizio v. Jefferson Pulmonary Assocs., 280 A.3d 1039, 1046 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2022) (quotation marks omitted), and the termination of his relationship with Appellees “placed [him] on notice to discover” the cause of any injury, Bailey, 621 A.2d at 116. Finally, Traumann has not showed that the fraudulent- concealment doctrine applies. See generally Glenbrook Leasing Co. v. Beausang, 839 A.2d 437, 443 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2003); Fine v. Checcio, 870 A.2d 850, 860 (Pa. 2005).

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we will affirm the District Court’s judgment. 5