Legal malpractice; Attorney-client relationship; Patel v FisherBroyles, LLP; Retainer agreement scope; Contract interpretation; Wasenko v Auto Club Group; Case-within-a-case; Ground penetrating radar (GPR)

The court held that defendants were entitled to summary disposition because their retainer agreement limited the scope of their representation to a legal-malpractice claim against prior counsel, and plaintiff also failed to show that he had a viable underlying claim against a nonparty (PM). Plaintiff first hired other counsel to sue the sellers of a scrapyard for failing to disclose buried toxic drums, then hired defendants to sue that prior law firm for malpractice after PM’s later digging found no barrels, and finally sued defendants for not suing PM before the limitations period expired. On appeal, the court held that the retainer agreement “clearly limits defendants’ scope of representation to claims ‘arising out of an incident, accident, or event of legal malpractice’ in the first case.” It rejected plaintiff’s claim that defendants expanded that scope merely by discussing whether PM might also be liable. The court next held that this case required plaintiff to prove a “case-within-a-case” because he alleged that defendants allowed the statute of limitations to run on a potential claim against PM. The court also held that plaintiff failed to show he would have succeeded against PM because there was no record support for the theory that PM lied or colluded with prior counsel, PM merely reported anomalies “consistent with potential drums,” and the evidence showed that the first survey was limited by vehicles, debris, and vegetation on the property. The court further noted that PM performed the work it was retained to do, that plaintiff had been warned about the limits of a GPR survey, and that plaintiff offered no evidence that any limited findings were PM’s fault. Affirmed.