Court Opinion

ID: 9581900
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:20:14.427921+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:37:19.690212
License: Public Domain

Nichols, Chief Justice,
concurring specially.
I concur specially because, in my opinion, the losses sustained by the Walkers were not proximately caused by the breach of any duty owed to them by their attorney, Mr. Howard.
I would reverse the judgment of the Court of Appeals and would affirm the judgment of the trial court because, in my opinion, the trial court correctly took the issue of proximate cause from the jury and decided it in favor of the defendant as a matter of law.
The relevant facts are these: Mr. Howard, a practicing attorney at law, was employed by the Walkers to attend the closing of the sale of their business. During the closing, the purchasers presented to the Walkers an instrument drawn on a purported bank in Nassau, *409Bahamas, in lieu of the instrument drawn on an Atlanta bank that the Walkers contractually were entitled to receive. Although Howard emphatically denies that he said anything to this effect, I must assume for purposes of the motion that he told the Walkers then and there that, in his opinion, the Nassau bank instrument was "as good as gold.” The Walkers maintain that had Howard warned them of legal defects appearing on the face of the instrument, they would not have accepted it in lieu of the Atlanta bank instrument. Howard maintains that the Nassau bank instrument is not subject to any legal defects ascertainable from its face. Regardless, however, of who should prevail on that issue, it remains the undisputed fact that the Walkers were unable to collect on the Nassau bank instrument because no such bank was in existence, not because of any alleged legal defect appearing on the face of the instrument. Thus, even if one were to assume, arguendo, that Howard was negligent in the performance of his obligation as a practicing attorney to review the instrument with due care for the purpose of determining whether or not it was subject to legal defects or objections appearing on its face, which assumption I do not make, then, nonetheless, the trial court should have ruled in his favor as a matter of law because the proximate cause of the Walkers’ financial losses was the nonexistence of the bank, not the legal defects, if any, appearing on the face of the instrument.