Hill v. Cloud, 22962.

• Decision Date: 15 February 1934
• Docket Number: No. 22962.,22962.
• Citation: 48 Ga.App. 506,173 S.E. 190
• Parties: HILL. v. CLOUD.
• Court: Georgia Court of Appeals

48 Ga.App. 506

173 S.E. 190

HILL.

v.CLOUD.

No. 22962.

Court of Appeals of Georgia,

Division No. 2.

Feb. 15, 1934.

Syllabus by Editorial Staff.

Error from Superior Court, Taliaferro County; C. J. Perryman, Judge.

Suit by W. T. Hill against Hawes Cloud. To review the judgment, after his motion for a new trial was overruled, plaintiff brings error.

Reversed.

J. A. Mitchell, of Crawfordville, for plaintiff in error.

Horace & Frank Holden, of Atlanta, and Hawes Cloud, of Crawfordville, for defendant in error.

Syllabus Opinion by the Court.

STEPHENS, Judge.

1. An attorney at law employed to examine a title to real estate who negligently fails to report an existing outstanding lien upon the property, is liable to his client for the actual damages sustained as a result of the attorney's negligence. 6 C. J. 711.

^J" [2] 2. Where a person having a lien upon property employed an attorney to examine the title to the property, and the attorney negligently overlooked and failed to report the record of an outstanding lien on the property, and in reliance upon the report of the attorney, the person employing him takes up another lien on the property, and the lien which the attorney overlooked was of record and constituted a first lien upon the property superior to the other liens, and was afterwards foreclosed, the loss, as a result of the attorney's negligence, to the person who employed him, was the value of the property where this value was within the amount of the lien which was overlooked.

3. While opinion evidence as to the value of land is not binding upon a jury, and, notwithstanding the opinion evidence as to value, the jury may, where there is evidence as to the character and the amount of the land, make their own estimate as to value, yet where, in a suit involving the value of land, it appears that the land consists of fifty acres constituting a home place in the county of Taliaferro, this state, and the lowest estimate placed thereon, as appears from the evidence, is that the value of the land is $400, an inference is demanded as a matter of law that the land is worth a sum in excess of 1 cent. Therefore upon the trial of a suit against an attorney to recover damages alleged as resulting from the attorney's failure to report the existence of the lien upon the land, where the plaintiff had employed the attorney to examine the title, and where the outstanding recorded lien against the land which the attorney failed to report as of record was in the amount of...