04-2-8443 McDonnell v. Hannon & Joyce, App. Div. (per curiam) (21 pp.) Plaintiff appeals from the dismissal of his legal malpractice action, bottomed upon his attorneys’ alleged failure to file an action within the three year statute of limitations of the Federal Employers Liability Act (FELA). The appellate panel finds that even if defendants failed to file the FELA claim in a timely fashion, plaintiff relinquished the injury claim on his own, without regard to the statute of limitations. Plaintiff’s use, through the expert selected by the substituted attorney, not defendants, of an opinion that negated an acute back injury cannot fairly be ascribed to defendants’ conduct. Plaintiff is unable to demonstrate proximate causation for any harm by defendants. Thus Plaintiff is, as a matter of law, unable to establish a necessary element required to pursue a legal malpractice action.
