The Appellate Division has overturned a legal malpractice verdict against an attorney accused of negligence for failing to file a tort claims notice on behalf of his client.

The Middlesex County judgment, entered against Spring Lake attorney Charles Shaw III in 2017, carried a damages award of $55,000. But the appeals court said the evidence did not present a prima facie claim for legal malpractice, because plaintiff Marianne Murphy's claims against the Hazlet police department and one of its officers for malicious prosecution and spoliation were not ripe during the period that Shaw represented her.

The final judgment was reversed and the case was remanded for entry of an order vacating the judgment and entering a directed verdict for Shaw.

Murphy retained Shaw in connection with a June 2010 car crash, road rage altercation and subsequent interaction with police, in which she was ticketed for failure to produce a vehicle registration and disorderly conduct.

But the scope of the retention was unclear, and she maintained she hired Shaw to represent her on the disorderly conduct and failure to produce a registration tickets, and for civil claims against the other driver, the two police officers who responded to the crash, and the Hazlet police department. But Shaw claimed he was only hired to represent Murphy on the municipal court citations of disorderly conduct and failure to produce a registration.

After meeting with Murphy, Shaw sent her a letter confirming he would represent her in the municipal court case. But Murphy believed Shaw was also representing her in connection with a claim against her auto insurance company for medical expenses related to the crash.

When Murphy's municipal court hearing was scheduled for a date in September 2010, Shaw repeatedly scheduled and rescheduled a meeting with Murphy to prepare for trial. He told her he would not be able to represent her at trial unless the hearing was rescheduled, because he had another trial scheduled for Superior Court in the same week. After the Superior Court trial was postponed, Shaw contacted Murphy to tell her he would be available to represent her at trial, but he was told that she had hired a new lawyer. Murphy terminated her relationship with Shaw on Sept. 22, 2010, after he refunded most of her retainer payment.

However, when Murphy appeared in municipal court, she did so without counsel, and was assigned a public defender. The charges against Murphy were dismissed.

Murphy filed a legal malpractice suit against Shaw in February 2013, claiming he breached his contract and duty owed to her by failing to file a tort claims notice against the police department and its officers.

Murphy then hired another attorney to bring an internal affairs complaint against the Hazlet police department and bring civil claims against the department, one of its officers and the other driver involved in the crash, Raeanne Martin. Although her attorney filed a tort claims notice, her suit against the police department and the officer were dismissed because the notice was untimely. And her suit against Martin ended in a no-cause judgment in September 2015, although the Appellate Division vacated the no-cause judgment and remanded for a new trial based on an incorrect jury charge in 2017.

In April 2016, a malpractice expert hired by Murphy, Thomas Dorn, issued a report expressing that he felt Shaw was negligent for failing to serve a tort claims notice on the police department.

In January 2017, a jury found Shaw did not breach his contract with Murphy, but was negligent.

At the Appellate Division, Shaw maintained that his representation of Murphy was limited to the municipal court case. Murphy argued that her ongoing communications with Shaw served to expand the scope of representation.

Judges Garry Rothstadt, Robert Gilson and Arnold Natali Jr. said Murphy's cause of action for malicious prosecution did not accrue until the underlying criminal proceeding came to an end. Therefore, a tort claims notice should have been filed no later than 90 days after March 2011, when the case against Murphy was dismissed. But that was “months after she terminated defendant's services as her attorney,” the panel wrote in an unsigned opinion. “Defendant therefore never had an obligation to file a notice for a malicious prosecution claim during the period he represent plaintiff because her claim had not yet ripened,” the court said.

The court issued a similar ruling for Shaw's alleged failure to file a tort claims notice with respect to Murphy's spoliation claims. She took issue with the police department's failure to provide recordings of the 911 calls related to the accident and road rage episode, and with its failure to preserve a miniature baseball bat that officers removed from her vehicle. Because the municipal court charges against Murphy were dismissed, no cause of action arose for spoliation during the period that Shaw represented Murphy, the appeals court said. The dismissal of the charges against her obviated any potential claim for spoliation because there was no longer any need or requirement for Hazlet or its officers to produce the 911 tapes or the bat. “Had there been a trial, and the items were not produced, plaintiff would at the very least have a claim for spoliation,” the panel said.

The lawyer for Murphy, Joseph Collini of Emolo & Collini in Paterson, did not respond to a request for comment.

Diana Manning of Bressler, Amery & Ross in Florham Park, who represented Shaw on appeal, said, “we are very pleased with the decision and we agree with the court's analysis.”