After Terrance Jones died during Diamond Woodruff’s personal-injury suit, the trial court dismissed the action on its own, reasoning that she had not sought substitution within 180 days after a suggestion of death was filed. The record showed that Jones’s counsel served the suggestion on Woodruff’s counsel and an insurer, but not on a nonparty representative of Jones’s estate. The Court of Appeals held that OCGA § 9-11-25 (a) (1)’s 180-day period begins only after the suggestion is personally served on the estate representative and that service appears in the record. It disapproved Harvey v. Oliver to the extent it allowed the period to begin when someone other than the estate representative filed the suggestion without serving that representative. Because the period had not begun, the court reversed the dismissal and did not reach Woodruff’s separate claim that the trial court should have held a hearing.