Title: Robinson v. Benton
Citation: 842 So. 2d 631
Docket Number: 1010167
State: Alabama
Issuer: Alabama Supreme Court
Date: May 24, 2002

842 So. 2d 631 (2002)
Wallace ROBINSON
v.
Daniel BENTON.
1010167.

Supreme Court of Alabama.
May 24, 2002.
Rehearing Denied August 16, 2002.
James G. Curenton, Jr., Fairhope, for appellant.
Charles C. Simpson III of Johnstone, Adams, Bailey, Gordon &amp; Harris, L.L.C., Bay Minette, for appellee.
HARWOOD, Justice.
Wallace Robinson appeals from the trial court's order granting a motion to dismiss filed by Daniel Benton. We affirm.
On March 22, 2001, Robinson filed a complaint against Benton. That complaint stated:
On May 11, 2001, Benton filed a motion to strike certain allegations in Robinson's complaint and to dismiss; his motion stated:
On August 21, 2001, the trial court conducted a hearing on Benton's motion to strike and to dismiss.
On August 23, 2001, Robinson filed an affidavit by Benton that had been filed in Dorothy Postle's estate proceedings, accompanied with a notice of filing stating that the affidavit had been read to the trial court during the August 21 hearing. Benton's affidavit, having been sworn to on September 20, 1999, stated:
On August 27, 2001, the trial court entered an order granting Benton's motion to strike and to dismiss. Robinson filed a notice of appeal to this Court on October 9, 2001.
On appeal, Robinson asserts in his brief to this Court as follows:
In arguing for a change of law, Robinson recognizes that "[u]nder current Alabama law an intended beneficiary cannot bring a civil action against the attorney unless the duty arises from a gratuitous undertaking by the attorney." (Appellant's brief at 11, citing Peterson v. Anderson, 719 So. 2d 216 (Ala.Civ.App.1997), and Shows v. NCNB Nat'l Bank of North Carolina, 585 So. 2d 880 (Ala.1991)).
While the trial court granted what Benton had styled as a motion to strike and to dismiss, the record shows that, in addition to the pleadings, Robinson filed with the trial court Benton's affidavit in the estate proceeding, and the trial court considered the affidavit before entering the dismissal. Thus, his motion to strike and dismiss was converted to a motion for a summary judgment and our standard of review is not the standard applicable to a grant of a motion to dismiss, but rather the standard of review applicable to a summary judgment.
Hornsby v. Sessions, 703 So. 2d 932, 937-38 (Ala.1997).
There being no genuine issue as to any material fact presented in this case, and given the current state of the law, Benton would be entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. The cases from both this Court and the Court of Civil Appeals referenced by Robinson in his brief to this Court Shows, supra, and Peterson, suprastand for the proposition that an intended beneficiary has no standing to bring a legal-malpractice action against an attorney because there is no privity between the beneficiary and attorney, and in the absence of privity, the attorney owes no duty to the beneficiary.
In Shows, supra, one of the Showses' claims was that an attorney had negligently prepared a deed of conveyance between NCNB National Bank of North Carolina and third parties who had purchased at a foreclosure sale real estate that had been owned by the Showses before they defaulted on a promissory note. In regard to the Showses' legal-malpractice claim, this Court stated:
585 So. 2d  at 882 (emphasis added).
In Peterson, supra, residual beneficiaries under a will filed an amended complaint that included a claim that an attorney had breached his fiduciary duties to the decedent. The attorney filed a motion to dismiss; the trial court granted the motion. The Court of Civil Appeals affirmed the trial court's order of dismissal, stating:
719 So. 2d  at 218-19.
In arguing that Alabama law should be changed to grant a third-party beneficiary standing to sue an attorney who has allegedly committed legal malpractice through services provided to a decedent, Robinson presents a survey of several jurisdictions that allow beneficiaries to bring malpractice claims under similar circumstances.[1] Benton responds by arguing that Alabama law should not depart from the rule disallowing attorneys to be sued for legal malpractice absent the existence of a contract or the attorney's performing a gratuitous undertaking, i.e., the rule stated in Shows, supra, and Peterson, supra. In making this argument, Benton cites caselaw from jurisdictions that require the claimant to be in privity with the attorney in order to have standing to bring a legal-malpractice claim.
In Barcelo v. Elliott, 923 S.W.2d 575 (Tex.1996), the Supreme Court of Texas, in addressing the issue "whether an attorney who negligently drafts a will or trust agreement owes a duty of care to persons intended to benefit under the will or trust, even though the attorney never represented the intended beneficiaries," id. at 576, set out a thoughtful discussion of the need for the requirement of privity in such cases. That court stated:
923 S.W.2d  at 577-79 (citations and headings omitted). See also Noble v. Bruce, 349 Md. 730, 709 A.2d 1264 (1998)(holding that the Maryland Supreme Court would continue to apply the strict privity requirement in the will-drafting and estate-planning context and setting out several policy grounds in support of such a requirement); Shriners Hosp. for Crippled Children, Inc. v. Southard, 892 P.2d 417, 418 (Colo.Ct. App.1994)("An attorney has a duty to act in the best interests of his or her client and is liable to third parties only for injuries caused by the attorney's fraudulent, malicious, or intentionally tortious conduct.").
We find the reasoning stated in these cases most persuasive. The change Robinson advocates implies the result that "attorneys would be subject to almost unlimited liability." Barcelo, supra, at 577. Accordingly, we decline to change the rule of law in this state that bars an action for legal malpractice against a lawyer by a plaintiff for whom the lawyer has not undertaken a duty, either by contract or gratuitously. Shows, supra, and Peterson, supra. It is to be noted that nowhere in Robinson's complaint did he allege that Postle was aware of the laws of intestate succession and distribution or that she otherwise had an understanding of, and intent as to, who would inherit from her estate if she were to die without following up on her expressed intention of preparing a new will.
Robinson also argues that his negligence claim against Benton falls outside the Legal Service Liability Act, § 6-5-570 *638 et seq., Ala.Code 1975. However, the record shows that this issue was never raised before the trial court. Therefore, we cannot address this issue on appeal. "Our review is limited to the issues that were before the trial courtan issue raised on appeal must have first been presented to and ruled on by the trial court." Norman v. Bozeman, 605 So. 2d 1210, 1214 (Ala.1992) (citation omitted). However, we note that the Legal Service Liability Act encompasses all claims against attorneys into one action. § 6-5-573, Ala.Code 1975; Peterson, supra. Further, Robinson's complaint specifically stated that "[t]his [was] a legal service liability action pursuant to Ala.Code § 6-5-570, et al." Accordingly, we do not address this argument further.
For the foregoing reasons, and based on the facts before us, the judgment of the trial court is due to be affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
MOORE, C.J., and SEE, BROWN, and STUART, JJ., concur.
[1]  See, e.g., Passell v. Watts, 794 So. 2d 651, 652 (Fla.Dist.Ct.App.2001)("Intended third-party beneficiaries of testamentary documents have standing to bring an action for legal malpractice if they are able to show that the testator's intent as expressed in the will is frustrated by the negligence of the testator's attorney.")(internal quotation marks and citations omitted); Winters v. Schulman, 977 P.2d 1218, 1225 (Utah Ct.App.1999)("In some instances the liability of an attorney to a third party may be recognized on the theory that the attorney's employment constituted a third-party beneficiary contract. The test for third party recovery is whether the parties clearly intended the third party to receive a benefit.") (citations omitted); Desire Narcotics Rehab. Ctr., Inc. v. White, 732 So. 2d 144, 146 (La.Ct. App.1999)("[T]he intended legatee under a will is considered a direct, explicit third-party beneficiary of the contract for legal services between the attorney and the testator so that, in the event the will is invalid, the legatee can have a cause of action against the attorney."); Leyba v. Whitley, 120 N.M. 768, 773, 907 P.2d 172, 177 (1995)("Even if an intended third-party beneficiary is not strictly in privity, we join those jurisdictions that have rejected any stringent privity test as the touchstone of an attorney's duty to a nonclient."); Simpson v. Calivas, 139 N.H. 1, 5-6, 650 A.2d 318, 322 (1994)("We agree that although there is no privity between a drafting attorney and an intended beneficiary, the obvious foreseeability of injury to the beneficiary demands an exception to the privity rule."); Auric v. Continental Cas. Co., 111 Wis.2d 507, 509, 331 N.W.2d 325, 327 (1983)("We conclude that a beneficiary of a will may maintain an action against an attorney who negligently drafted or supervised the execution of the will even though the beneficiary is not in privity with that attorney.").