Rydde v. Morris

This legal malpractice action presents the following question: whether an attorney’s alleged negligent failure to timely draft a will and arrange for its execution permits prospective beneficiaries of the estate to maintain a cause of action for legal malpractice. There is no such claim in South Carolina, and we hold an attorney owes no duty to a prospective beneficiary of a nonexistent will. In so ruling, we affirm the trial court’s dismissal of the action.

I

Johanna W. Knight was an elderly resident of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, who died on October 8, 2005, as a result of lung cancer.…