Coby Nixon, Elizabeth Borland, Dale Lischer, Deborah Heineman, and Stephen Forte are attorneys with the law firm of Smith, Gambrell & Russell the “attorney defendants”. James Oswell filed a complaint against the attorney defendants. In his complaint, he does not claim to have ever been a client of Smith, Gambrell & Russell. His purported claims arise out of the attorney defendants’ representation of an opposing party in litigation against Oswell in federal court. Specifically, Oswell claims that in connection with that federal lawsuit, the opposing party filed a motion for contempt against Oswell, which included a declaration by Nixon that allegedly touched on events that occurred two to four days before Nixon was sworn in as a member of the state bar. Oswell contends in this lawsuit that he was a victim of the unauthorized practice of law by Nixon in a pending federal lawsuit. He further alleges that each of the other attorney defendants negligently hired, trained, retained and/or supervised Nixon and/or the other attorney defendants. The attorney defendants filed a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. Subsequently, Oswell filed an amended complaint, and the attorney defendants filed an amended motion to dismiss which addressed the issues raised in the amended complaint.1 The trial court held a hearing on the motions to dismiss and granted the attorney defendants’ motions to dismiss. The trial court’s order notes that the trial judge based his decision on the submissions of the parties, the arguments of counsel, and the entire record in the case. The order continues: “For the reasons stated by the Court at the hearing on March 23, 2004 and based upon the entire record and the matters presented at the hearing, the Court finds that this action was substantially frivolous. . . .” The order requires Oswell and his attorney to pay the attorney defendants’ reasonable and necessary attorney fees in the amount of $1,200.
1. In his sole enumeration of error, Oswell contends the trial court erred in dismissing his complaint and amended complaint. As an initial matter, we note that Oswell’s brief fails to comply with our Court of Appeals rules, in that the statement of fact and argument sections do not contain a single citation to the record.2 Although failure to comply with such rules authorizes this Court to treat Oswell’s enumeration of error as abandoned,3 we have elected in our discretion to address Oswell’s argument that the trial court erred in dismissing his claims against the defendant attorneys on the ground that he failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.
