This is a continuation of legal malpractice litigation brought by appellants/cross-appellees Douglas Paul, Sharon Paul, Catspaw, Inc. “Catspaw”, Catspaw Productions, Inc. “CPI”, Atlanta Catco, Inc. “Catco”, and Recording Studio, Inc. “RSI” collectively, the “appellants”, against Smith, Gambrell & Russell n/k/a Smith, Gambrell & Russell, LLP the “law firm”. The law firm represented appellants before and during commercial litigation brought by their former business partner, Ralph Destito, which culminated in a 1999 verdict and judgment against them for $489,727 in actual damages, $90,000 in litigation costs and expenses, and $450,000 in punitive damages. The judgment was affirmed on appeal.1 On July 3, 2002, appellants filed this legal malpractice action against the law firm, seeking to recover the sums they paid to Destito to satisfy the judgment. Initially, the law firm moved for partial summary judgment on two issues: whether it could be held liable for the punitive damage award and whether it was entitled to judgmental immunity2 for failing to call appellants’ expert on accounting as a witness. The trial court granted summary judgment to the law firm on both issues, and appellants appealed. In Paul v. Smith, Gambrell & Russell “Paul II “,3 we affirmed on the issue of punitive damages but reversed on the issue of judgmental immunity, holding that whether the law firm’s failure to call the expert witness was an “exercise of honest professional judgment” was a jury issue “under the facts and circumstances of this case in light of evidence of conflicts of interest.”4
After we decided Paul II , the law firm moved for summary judgment on appellants’ claims that the law firm negligently failed to prepare appellants properly for trial and committed malpractice in the preparation of corporate documents merging CPI into RSI and in undoing the merger after Destito objected. The trial court granted the law firm’s motion on the claim of inadequate trial preparation but denied it on the claim related to the corporate documents. In Case No. A06A2135, appellants appeal the grant of summary judgment to the law firm on the trial preparation claim. In Case No. A06A2136, the law firm cross-appeals the denial of summary judgment on the issue of its liability for negligent preparation of the merger documents. We affirm the judgments in both cases.
