In
Gloria Baker, et al. v. Raymond James & Associates Inc., et al., the Mississippi Supreme Court on March 4 reinstated a trial court ruling that Mississippi’s latent-injury discovery-rule exception to the catch-all, three-year limitations period did not apply where the lay plaintiffs, though inexperienced and unsophisticated investors, received monthly account statements showing “substantial losses” on their managed retirement investments. Bradley was part of the team that assisted Raymond James in this signal victory.
The plaintiffs filed suit in 2017, alleging, among other things, a negligence claim against their financial advisor and the advisor’s then-employer Morgan Keegan (now Raymond James). The advisor invested the plaintiffs’ retirement assets from 2002 to 2013. During those years, the plaintiffs received monthly account statements showing substantial losses. The defendants moved for summary judgment based on the three-year statute of limitations, arguing the cause of action accrued at the latest in 2008, when each plaintiff had received written confirmation that one of each of their “investments had sustained a 90 percent loss.” The plaintiffs asserted that their losses were latent injuries. In Mississippi, a latent injury tolls the limitations period if the injury is inherently undiscoverable in nature or when it is unrealistic to expect a layman to perceive the injury. The trial court rejected the latent-injury theory and entered summary judgment in favor of Raymond James and the other defendants. The court concluded that “[t]o discover their injuries, Plaintiffs simply had to glance at their account statements, which would have alerted them to the substantial losses about which they now complain.” The court emphasized that it “does not require advanced degrees or financial backgrounds to realize that those statements showed investment activity inconsistent with their objectives.”