Britton

Concurring. — I concur in the judgment only. I respectfully disagree with the majority’s conclusion that plaintiffs’ allegations show that, at the time of the settlement, plaintiffs already had sufficient notice of wrongdoing to trigger a duty to investigate. But I believe that the judgment should be affirmed for largely the same reasons stated in my dissent in Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack (2014) 223 Cal.App.4th 1105 [ 167 Cal.Rptr.3d 832 ].

Defendants were plaintiffs’ lawyers, and all of plaintiffs’ claims arise from defendants’ performance of professional services for plaintiffs. Plaintiffs’ claims are consequently subject to the statute of limitations defined by subdivision (a) of Code of Civil Procedure section 340.6, which provides that “[a]n action against an attorney for a wrongful act or omission, other than for actual fraud, arising in the performance of professional services shall be commenced within one year after the plaintiff discovers, or through the use of reasonable diligence should have discovered, the facts constituting the wrongful act or omission, or four years from the date of the wrongful act or *739 omission, whichever occurs first.” The…

BACKGROUND

1. Prakashpalan v. Engstrom, Lipscomb & Lack In Prakashpalan, supra, 223 Cal.App.4th 1105, we held that the provisions of Probate Code section 16460 applied to claims for fraud where the attorney-fiduciary had failed to provide an accounting of an aggregate settlement. In Prakashpalan, the Prakashpalans alleged that the defendant law firm settled a lawsuit for 93 insureds of State Farm for claims arising out of the Northridge earthquake in November 1997, but that the plaintiffs did not learn until February 2012 that the defendant had failed to fully and properly distribute $22 million of the settlement funds. The Prakashpalans alleged that they first suspected fraud when they had randomly contacted 17 of the plaintiffs in the litigation, and conducted a mathematical analysis of the settlement and of the overall litigation. Based on those discussions, plaintiffs alleged a significant portion of the settlement funds had been withheld. The Prakashpalans did not allege that the settlement was presided over by retired judges, that they had signed a settlement agreement, or that their informed consent to the settlement was not obtained. (Id. at pp. 1114–1115.) The…

Plaintiffs Angela Britton and others appeal judgment after the trial court sustained the demurrer of defendants to plaintiffs’ second amended complaint (SAC) for damages based upon defendants’ alleged *725 failure to obtain their informed consent to an aggregate settlement, and defendants’ misappropriation of and failure to account for the settlement funds. Plaintiffs were represented by defendant law firms and attorneys in connection with an action against State Farm Insurance Company arising out of the 1994 Northridge earthquake (State Farm litigation). Court-appointed retired judges presided over a 1997 aggregate settlement of the matter on behalf of plaintiffs. However, in 2012, one of the parties to the State Farm settlement conducted a random sampling of other plaintiffs’ awards in the action, which sampling they contend revealed that the defendant law firms allegedly had not properly disbursed or accounted for the settlement funds and had concealed this conduct from plaintiffs. The trial court sustained defendants’ demurrers on the grounds that plaintiffs’ claims were based on speculation and barred by the statute of limitations of Code of Civil Procedure sections…