Barnes, Presiding Judge.Ursula MacDowell filed a complaint alleging dental malpractice, and, upon concluding that MacDowell’s complaint had been filed outside the statute of limitations, the trial court granted summary judgment to Steven M. Gallant, D.D.S. and Steven M. Gallant, D.D.S., P.C., the professional corporation through which he practices. In MacDowell v. Gallant, 323 Ga. App. 61 (744 SE2d 836) (2013), this Court reversed the trial court’s grant of summary judgment to Dr. Gallant and thereafter, the Supreme Court of Georgia granted his petition for a writ of certiorari, directing the parties to brief whether this Court “err[ed] when it held that the statutory period of limitation was tolled even after the plaintiff consulted with a second dentist.” (Punctuation omitted.) Gallant v. MacDowell, 295 Ga. 329, 329 (759 SE2d 818) (2014). In affirming this Court, the Supreme Court concluded that [t]he tolling statute already provides that, where the defendant has engaged in fraud by which the plaintiff has been debarred or deterred from bringing an action, the period of limitation runs only from the plaintiff’s discovery of such fraud. OCGA § 9396. Those cases in which the appellate courts have held that the tolling of the period of limitation as a result of fraud ends at the point at which a plaintiff seeks the diagnosis of another doctor are based upon the rationale that, at such a point, the plaintiff is no longer deterred, by any conduct of the defendant, from learning the true facts. . . . Where, as here, the doctor consulted is one who has provided professional services to the plaintiff jointly with the defendant, that rationale does not apply.
(Citations and punctuation omitted.) Id. at 332-333.[1] The Supreme Court noted “that other grounds for summary judgment remain to be addressed by the trial court on remand.” Gallant, 295 Ga. at 333. It further noted that the trial court had relied only on constructive notice in granting summary judgment to appellants, and left the issue of “whether MacDowell received actual notice of Dr. Gallant’s alleged malpractice from Dr. Winston . . . to be addressed on remand.” Id. at 332 n. 5. Additionally, the Supreme Court noted that,[t]he trial court has not yet found that fraud is actually present in this case so as to toll the statute of limitation. It simply found that even if fraud existed and the statute was tolled, the period would run again so as to time bar the claims asserted. The question of whether fraud exists, therefore, remains undetermined.
