Limitations statute tolled in wrongful-death lawsuit before Mass.
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A couple’s wrongful-death suit filed nearly six years after their daughter died in a hit-and-run accident was not time-barred where the police had told the parents not to act independently of an ongoing criminal investigation into the crash, a Superior Court judge has ruled. The defendant hit-and-run driver — who had fraudulently concealed his identity — argued that the couple received information on him in a letter a year after the accident and thus were required to file suit within three years of acquiring that information. But Judge Ernest B. Murphy disagreed. “Even if the information contained in the anonymous letter would have led the [plaintiffs] to discover [the defendant’s] involvement in the accident, a criminal investigation into the matter was already underway,” wrote Murphy, denying the defendant’s motion for summary judgment. “Accordingly, it was reasonable for the [plaintiffs] to allow the police to proceed with the investigation into the identity of the unknown … driver involved in the accident.” The six-page decision is Kirschning, et al. v. Constantino, et al., Lawyers Weekly No. 12-086-07. ‘The heart of equity’ The ruling “reaches to the heart of equity,” said plaintiffs’ counsel Marc D. Padellaro of Cambridge. “Both [the… |