A New Jersey appeals court revived a legal malpractice lawsuit lodged against a matrimonial lawyer for advice given 17 years ago after finding the statute of limitations had not elapsed.

The malpractice suit stems from a divorce settlement reached in 2003 that granted limited-duration alimony for nine years to Mary Beth Jones. Jones claims her attorney at the time, Andrew Viola of Albano & Viola in Runnemede, advised her that a court would extend the duration of alimony if she still showed a need after nine years. But her application for an extension was denied in 2012, and an appeal of that ruling was denied by the Appellate Division in 2013.

The malpractice claim was dismissed on summary judgment based on a finding that the cause of action accrued when the advice at issue was rendered in 2003. But the appeals court on Thursday said the malpractice claim accrued in 2012, when the extension of alimony was denied. Since the malpractice suit was filed in 2016, it fell within the six-year statute of limitations, the appeals court said.

The panel said the Supreme Court has warned against "an inflexible application of the statute of limitations in legal malpractice cases" because sometimes a client might be unable to detect the essential facts of a malpractice claim easily or promptly because of the complexity of the issues. Therefore, the claim accrues when the client suffers actual damage and discovers the facts essential to the malpractice claim, or should discover them through reasonable diligence, the panel said.

"We appreciate the difficulties of an attorney being forced to defend advice he gave to a client more than a decade earlier," Appellate Division Judges Jack Sabatino, Richard Geiger and Arnold Natali Jr. said in an unsigned opinion. "But that difficulty is largely a function of the generous six-year limitations statute and the Supreme Court's equity-based accrual doctrine (which, parenthetically, also at times requires physicians and other professionals to defend actions that they took many years earlier before the harm to the plaintiff ultimately manifested)."

Jones did not suffer actual damage until the court ruled she would not be able to have the alimony extended merely because she continued to need that financial support, the panel said.

The appeals court also rejected the lower court's ruling that Jones could not bring the malpractice case because of her stated assent to the terms of the divorce agreement. Although the judgment of divorce includes a recital that Jones and her former husband each deemed the terms of their settlement "fair and reasonable," the panel noted, it would have been customary for both spouses to make such a statement under oath. Jones' statement was based on a faulty premise because she did not know at the time that her alimony would not be extended, the appeals court said.

Jones "has presented a more than plausible case—supported by her two experts—that she received inadequate advice and representation in her divorce action," the panel said.

At trial, she will have the burden of proving what injuries were suffered as a proximate consequence of the attorney's breach of duty, the court said. The jury may consider whether the lawyer representing Jones in the 2012 case contributed to the alleged harm by not advocating her interests more persuasively and by not stressing that the 2009 diagnosis of the parties' son with epilepsy further impeded Jones' ability to work, the panel said.

Although Viola told her the duration of her alimony could be extended, a state statute dictates that the term should not be extended except in "unusual circumstances," the appeals court said. Limited-duration alimony is intended for a spouse who has the skills and education necessary to return to the workforce, and is intended for spouses who had a shorter marriage,  but Jones has "no special skills or training" and she and her husband were married for 17 years, the panel said.

When Jones' husband filed for divorce, he was a truck driver earning $85,000 per year and she was a florist earning $13,000. She had custody of their two adult children, who were both diagnosed with autism, and the older child, a daughter, also had Asperger syndrome. The younger child, a son, was over 21 but functioned at the level of a 9-year-old with the language skills of a 3-year old, and required 24-hour care.

Matthew Marrone of Goldberg Segalla in Philadelphia, representing Viola, did not return a call about the case. Jones' lawyer, Hainesport solo practitioner Mark Molz, also did not return a call.