Dismissal of surveying company in professional negligence case.

We won dismissal of a professional negligence case against a surveyor filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. ​This action was filed by two title companies that had paid a title insurance claim to a property purchaser and sought subrogation from our client, a surveying company. They alleged that a defective survey was the cause of the title insurance claim. Ohio has a four-year statute of limitations for professional negligence claims against surveyors, and this case was filed more than four years after the allegedly defective survey was completed, rendering it untimely. The plaintiffs attempted to avoid dismissal by captioning their claims as claims for breach of contract, in order to take advantage of a longer limitations period. We argued that, despite how the claims were captioned, they were, in substance, claims for professional negligence and time-barred. The court agreed and dismissed the case.