Professional Negligence Law Reporter

A Georgia appellate court held that divorce attorneys were not liable to their former client whose ex-husband terminated alimony payments after the couple’s divorce was finalized.

Here, Tracy Ann Moore represented Audra Edwards in her divorce. Edwards, who was formally represented by two different attorneys, had been receiving alimony payments under a separation agreement drafted several years before the divorce was finalized. After the divorce, Edwards’s former husband stopped payment alimony. A court subsequently found that the settlement agreement provided that the husband was relieved of paying alimony once the divorce was finalized.

Edwards filed suit against Moore and two affiliated law firms, alleging legal malpractice and other claims. The plaintiff alleged that Moore had failed to pursue an alimony award before the divorce court. The trial court granted summary judgment for the defense, finding that the plaintiff could not prove, as a matter of law, that the defendants had proximately caused the termination of her alimony payments.

Affirming, the appellate court found that the plaintiff had failed to establish a question of fact as to whether Moore’s conduct had caused her damages. There is no evidence that Edwards would have succeeded in obtaining alimony from her former husband, the court said, noting that there is no inherent right to alimony, which is awarded based on a party’s needs and the other spouse’s ability to pay. The record contains no evidence of the former husband’s financial status, his annual income, or his assets that would support an alimony award based on his ability to pay, the court said. Thus, the court concluded that the plaintiff cannot show that but for the defendants’ error, the outcome of her case would have been different. The court therefore held that summary judgment for the defendants had been proper.

Citation: Edwards v. Moore, 2019 WL 2635599 (Ga. Ct. App. June 27, 2019).