Dan Mosera appeals from the order of the Superior Court of Fulton County granting summary judgment in favor of attorneys Michael P. Davis and R. Milton Crouch, and their law firm, Shapiro Fussell Wedge & Martin, LLP hereinafter “appellees”, in this action for legal malpractice and breach of fiduciary duty. For the following reasons, we affirm. To prevail on summary judgment, the moving party must show that no genuine issues of material fact remain to be tried and that the undisputed facts, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, warrant judgment as a matter of law. On summary judgment, we must construe the evidence and all reasonable inferences and conclusions that may be drawn from it most favorably to the nonmovant.1 So viewed, the evidence shows that in 1998, Mosera formed a software distribution business in California with two partners. Represented by Atlanta attorney Wade Anderson, the business asserted legal claims against a software manufacturer, which claims were eventually settled in 2002. Mosera, who had moved to Atlanta in the meantime, received approximately $560,000 from the settlement. In January 2002, attorney Anderson approached Mosera about an investment opportunity involving Humberto Bethencourt, with whom Mosera had done business upon first arriving in Atlanta. Anderson advised Mosera that he had a client who had won land in a quiet title suit; that the client wanted to develop a subdivision; and that Bethencourt was going to be the developer. Using the money from the settlement, Mosera loaned $500,000 to TBG Group, Inc. “TBG”, a Bethencourt-related entity, which was the manager of a joint venture, Rowland Springs, LLC “Rowland Springs”, for the development of a subdivision in Bartow County. On February 8, 2002, Mosera executed a loan agreement with TBG, which gave him a deed to secure debt on the subdivision. Bethencourt executed the loan agreement as president of TBG. According to the loan agreement, Mosera was to receive interest payments of $3,800 per month for eighteen consecutive months, until August 29, 2003, when a balloon payment for the principal amount was due. The loan agreement also specifically provided that Anderson represented Rowland Springs. The interest payments were made, but the balloon payment was not. When Mosera threatened to foreclose on the property, Anderson told him that he could not because his deed to secure debt had never been filed.2 After the loan default, Mosera was referred to appellees.
On October 24, 2003, attorney Davis wrote a letter to Mosera explaining Georgia’s recording statutes and the consequences of Anderson’s failure to file the deed to secure debt. Mosera testified that “90 percent of it was legalese, which you know, I got the gist of it.” The letter explained that an unfiled deed to secure debt could be enforced against the party to the instrument, or against a transferee that had constructive notice of the instrument, but not against a bona fide purchaser.
