Baltins

This appeal raises the issue of when “actual injury” occurs for purposes of the four-year limitations period for legal malpractice actions. (Code Civ. Proc., § 340.6, subd. (a)(1).) Appellants Aldis and Nancy Baltins sued their former attorney, respondent Duncan M. James, in August 1990. They asserted James negligently advised them in 1984 about transferring property while Aldis appealed an order setting aside his property settlement with his former wife, Deanna. That appeal was the subject of In re Marriage of Baltins (1989) 212 Cal.App.3d 66 [ 260 Cal.Rptr. 403 ], which affirmed the order. The Baltinses claim their first actual injury from James’s advice occurred nine years after the alleged malpractice, when the trial court finally divided Aldis and Deanna’s community property. James demurred to the Baltinses’ amended complaint, arguing that any actual injury must have occurred before the attorney-client relationship terminated in 1985. The trial court agreed and sustained the demurrer.

In this court, James offers two events as injuries that support the trial court’s judgment: the 1984 order setting aside the original division of community property, and Aldis’s 1984…