## Facts

- Laura and Bobby Herring retained attorney Thomas Edward Tante IV to represent Mrs. Herring in a Social Security disability claim.
- Tante appeared at the administrative hearing, submitted written argument, and Mrs. Herring received a favorable disability award.
- The administrative law judge approved Tante’s requested fee, which the Herrings had approved.
- During the representation, Tante engaged in an adulterous sexual relationship with Mrs. Herring.
- The Herrings alleged Tante exploited confidential information about Mrs. Herring’s emotional and mental condition to induce and maintain the relationship, causing her physical and mental harm.
- The Herrings sued for legal malpractice, breach of fiduciary duty, and breach of contract.
- The trial court granted partial summary judgment to the Herrings on liability and denied Tante’s motion for summary judgment.
- The intermediate appellate court upheld the ruling allowing malpractice and fiduciary-duty theories to proceed.
- The Supreme Court of Georgia reviewed whether the claims were legally valid on the summary-judgment record.

## Issues

1. Whether an attorney’s sexual relationship with a client, and alleged misuse of confidential information, constitutes legal malpractice when the representation achieved the desired legal result.
2. Whether the same conduct can support a claim for breach of fiduciary duty arising from the attorney-client relationship.
3. Whether the conduct supports an independent claim for breach of contract based on the representation agreement.

## Decision

- The court affirmed in part and reversed in part.
- It rejected the legal malpractice claim as a matter of law and reversed the contrary ruling.
- It rejected the breach of contract claim.
- It allowed the breach of fiduciary duty claim to proceed and upheld summary judgment on liability for that claim, leaving damages for further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- Legal malpractice requires: (1) employment of an attorney, (2) failure to exercise ordinary care, skill, and diligence, and (3) damages proximately caused by that failure.
- Even serious attorney misconduct is not actionable as malpractice without proof that deficient legal performance caused compensable damages in the representation.
- The attorney-client relationship imposes fiduciary duties of loyalty, good faith, and proper use of client confidences; self-interested exploitation of a client may constitute a fiduciary breach independent of malpractice.
- A fiduciary-duty claim based on disloyalty and misuse of confidential information may be intelligible to lay factfinders and need not depend on expert proof of professional negligence.
- A breach of contract claim fails where the agreement’s essential performance (providing representation that achieves the contracted-for legal objective) is not shown to have been contractually breached by the complained-of conduct.

## Conclusion

The court held that an attorney’s sexual exploitation of a client may support liability for breach of fiduciary duty, but it is not legal malpractice absent evidence that the attorney’s legal work fell below professional care and proximately caused damages, and it does not create an independent breach of contract claim on these facts.


Tante v. Herring, 264 Ga. 694, 453 S.E.2d 686 (Ga. 1994)