In this legal malpractice case, Latanya Butler and her daughter, Adrianne Ray-Sears, appeal from the order granting summary judgment to the attorneys who represented them in a personal injury action arising from an automobile collision. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of the attorneys. Butler and Ray-Sears contend that the trial court erred in four different respects in granting the attorneys’ motion for summary judgment. They argue that the trial court erred in finding that no service was accomplished on the defendant in the collision litigation and that the attorneys’ negligence, if any, was not the proximate cause of any damages incurred by Butler and Ray-Sears. They also maintain that regardless of whether proper service was made in the collision litigation, the attorneys’ failure to exercise due diligence in effecting that service constituted professional negligence, and that the attorneys’ professional negligence resulted in loss of the plaintiffs’ right to pursue a claim against their own uninsured motorist insurance carrier. Because we find merit in some of these allegations, we conclude that the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the attorneys must be reversed. The record shows that a vehicular collision occurred on June 16, 1997, when a vehicle owned by Columbus Roberts and driven by Cornelius Willis crossed into an oncoming lane of traffic, colliding with a vehicle driven by Butler in which Ray-Sears was a passenger.1 Butler filed an action against Willis and Roberts2 on June 7, 1999 in the State Court of Clayton County. Several attempts to serve Willis personally were unsuccessful. On June 20, 2000, more than one year after the applicable statute of limitation expired, Willis was served by publication to enable Butler to make a claim against her own uninsured motorist insurance carrier, State Farm, under OCGA § 33-7-11 e. After dismissing her attorneys, in October 2000 Butler retained Melvin Robinson as her new counsel, and Robinson associated the Florida firm of Gary, Williams, Parenti, Finney, Lewis, McManus, Watson, & Sperando, P.L. as lead counsel.
On March 28, 2002, almost five years after the collision and nearly three years after the statute of limitation expired, see OCGA § 9-3-33, a special agent accomplished service upon Willis by leaving a copy of the summons and complaint with an individual identified as Perez Roberts.3 On May 6, 2002, through counsel retained by his liability insurance carrier, Willis filed a motion to dismiss or, in the alternative, for summary judgment, alleging as a ground for dismissal or summary judgment Butler’s failure to exercise due diligence in serving him. This motion was granted on July 2, 2002, thereby terminating the auto collision litigation.
