A personal injury case led to an award of $4500 in attorney fees against the defendants’ attorneys after they lost a motion to compel. Among other things, the defendants sought to designate certain documents as “ATTORNEYS EYES ONLY” and objected to 14 of 21 document requests on the basis of trade secret privilege — in a car wreck case. The county court at law overruled the vast majority of the defendants’ objections, and awarded the $4500 to the plaintiff. On appeal, the defendants’ attorneys argued that the award was a sanction that could not be justified by any offensive conduct. The Dallas Court of Appeals disagreed, pointing to the trial court’s order stating that the award of fees and costs was granted for securing orders overruling the defendants’ objections to the plaintiff’s discovery requests. That made it an award of expenses on a motion to compel, which is required (but rarely observed) by TRCP 215.1(d). Reviewing the course of the proceedings in the trial court, the Court of Appeals could not conclude that the trial court had abused its discretion in determining that the defendants’ resistance to the discovery had not been “substantially justified.”

MacDonald Devin, PC v. Rice, No. 05-14-00938-CV

An opinion denying mandamus relief features one of the more awesome opening sentences in recent history:

“This case involves a gun in exchange for the design of a website deal gone badly.”

Who could have foreseen this becoming problematic? In any event, Thoroughbred Rifles, LLC failed to deliver the rifle promised for the design of its website, so Thomas King filed suit in a Harris County justice court for damages of less than $10,000. Thoroughbred subsequently filed suit in Collin county for damages between $100,000 and $200,000. The district court denied King’s plea in abatement and motion to transfer to Houston, and the Court of Appeals denied King’s mandamus petition. Because Thoroughbred’s damages exceeded the jurisdiction of the Harris County justice court, that court could not acquire dominant jurisdiction over them, making transfer of the claims impossible.

Good on Justice Schenck for the epic opening.

In re King, No. 05-15-01035-CV

While the slow season for opinions continues at the Dallas Court of Appeals, a short memorandum opinion provides a procedural lesson that could prove useful for any appellate attorney dealing with a pro se opponent. In this case, the appellant filed an affidavit of indigence with the trial court, seeking to avoid prepayment of costs under TRAP 20.1. The clerk challenged the appellant’s indigent status on September 15, and the court reporter contested the affidavit on September 17. But when multiple challenges to an affidavit of indigence are filed, the trial court still has to rule within 10 days of the first challenge. The trial court signed an order sustaining the court reporter’s challenge on October 6, well outside the 10-day period that should have run from September 15. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court had abused its discretion, reversed the order sustaining the contest to the pro se appellant’s indigence, and held that he could proceed with the appeal without advance payment of costs.

Bell v. Harris, No. 05-15-01117-CV

After an automobile collision, the Gomez family sued Sol Ly for negligence. Ly was represented by the Herald law firm, which also employed attorney Tim Brandenburg. But while the suit was pending, Brandenburg left Herald to join the law firm of Domingo Garcia, which represented the plaintiffs. Based on the defendant’s oral objection, the trial court granted a mistrial and ordered the defendant to file a motion to disqualify, which was subsequently granted. The plaintiffs failed to obtain substitute counsel, and the case was dismissed for want of prosecution. The Court of Appeals affirmed. The plaintiffs’ pro se motion to reinstate the case following the dismissal challenged only the disqualification, and not the plaintiffs’ failure to appear at the new trial setting. Without a showing that the failure to appear was adequately justified, the Court of Appeals could not conclude that the trial court had abused its discretion in denying the motion to reinstate.

Gomez. v. Sol, No. 05-14-00893-CV

Jenner & Block took on the representation of Parallel Networks in patent infringement litigation. Their contingency fee agreement provided that Parallel was responsible for the payment of expenses, but Parallel ran up a $500,000 deficit before expenses were finally paid out of proceeds from settlement in another lawsuit. Jenner withdrew from the case, citing a termination clause that allowed it to withdraw if continuing was not in its economic interest. After the patent cases settled under successor counsel, Jenner invoked arbitration and sought to recover $10 million in fees. The arbitrator ruled that Jenner’s withdrawal was justified and awarded $3 million as an “appropriate and fair” portion of the contingent fee recovery, as provided in the parties’ contract. The trial court confirmed the award, and the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court declined Parallel’s invitation to declare that the fee agreement was against public policy, holding that the statutory grounds for vacating an award under the FAA are exclusive, and that public policy therefore could not serve to vacate the award.

Parallel Networks, LLC v. Jenner & Block LLP, No. 05-13-00748-CV

Deutsche Bank has won a restricted appeal to set aside a no-answer default judgment. The petition named the defendant as “DEUTSCHE BANK NATIONAL TRUST COMPANY, herein sued in its capacity as the Trustee for the Morgan Stanley ABS Capital 1 Inc., Trust 2006-NC5, Mortgage Pass Through Certificates, Series 2006-NC5.” But the clerk’s office issued a citation addressed to “Deutsche Bank National Trust Company as Trustee Company,” and that name was also used on the affidavit of service. Because the citation was addressed to the wrong party, the attempted service of process was invalid and the default judgment had to be set aside.

Deutsche Bank Nat’l Trust Co. v. Kingman Holdings, LLC, 05-14-00855-CV

One thing every lawyer in Texas learns early on is that if you want to challenge personal jurisdiction, you have to file a special appearance before you answer the petition. Critter Control, Inc. sought to avoid that waiver point by filing a motion to withdraw its original answer in favor of a subsequently filed special appearance, which the trial court denied. Critter Control filed for interlocutory appeal, and Galt Strategies, LLC filed a motion to dismiss for lack of appellate jurisdiction. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal because it did not challenge the denial of the special appearance, but the Court notably did not foreclose the stratagem of moving to withdraw the answer in order to assert the untimely special appearance.

Critter Control, Inc. v. Galt Strategies, LLC, No. 05-15-01011-CV

After a night of drinking in Uptown, Shawn Strumph was found by a jogger the next morning in a creekbed beneath a bridge owned by CC-Turtle Creek. Medical records contained several versions of how he ended up there, including assault, jumping, or simply falling. Shawn and his parents sued for dram shop and premises liability, but the trial court granted no-evidence summary judgment on the element of proximate cause. Because Shawn remembered nothing of how his injuries happened, and because there were no witnesses to the incident, the plaintiffs could not carry their burden under any theory of liability.

Stumph v. Dallas Lemmon West, Inc., No. 05-14-01044-CV

A group of plaintiffs collectively named as Nemaha Water Services moved to compel arbitration before FINRA. In a cross-motion, Esposito Securities moved to compel arbitration before the AAA. The trial court denied Nemaha’s motion and granted Esposito’s, sending the case to AAA arbitration. In a hybrid interlocutory appeal and mandamus proceeding, the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed and sent the case to FINRA. Nemaha had signed a letter agreement in which it had agreed to pay Esposito 5% of the total consideration received in a qualifying investment or merger. The contract included a AAA arbitration provision, but the Court of Appeals held that clause was trumped by the FINRA rules, at least in this instance. The case turned on the question of whether Nemaha was a “customer” of Esposito, which would entitle it to invoke arbitration under the FINRA rules. Applying the ordinary meaning of “customer,” the Court held that Nemaha qualified even though it had not paid Esposito the contractual commission. Because Nemaha had contracted with Esposito — a member of FINRA — to purchase financial services for a fee, the Court concluded that Nemaha was entitled to invoke FINRA arbitration. The Court noted, however, that there is authority for the proposition that FINRA arbitration can be superseded by contract, although that was not the case this time.

Morford v. Esposito Sec., LLC, No. 05-14-01223-CV

Last year, we reported on the Dallas Court of Appeals’ decision to affirm the trial court’s denial of the Office of Attorney General’s plea to the jurisdiction in a Whistleblower Act case. Today, the Texas Supreme Court has reversed and rendered, holding that the whistleblower’s report to her superior at OAG was not made to “an appropriate law enforcement authority,” as required by the Whistleblower Act. The plaintiff’s pleadings therefore failed to properly invoke the Act, meaning that OAG’s sovereign immunity was not waived.

Office of the Attorney Gen. v. Weatherspoon, No. 14-0582

On July 10, the district court orally denied the special appearance of Ann Stokley. The court did not sign a written order, however, which left Stokley unable to pursue an interlocutory appeal. On September 15, Stokley filed a petition for writ of mandamus with the Dallas Court of Appeals. Two days later, that Court has issued a brief memorandum petition denying relief. Although a trial court abuses its discretion when it fails to rule within a reasonable time, the Court could not conclude that the trial court had done so here in light of “the trial court’s actual knowledge of the motion, whether its refusal to act is overt, the state of the court’s docket, and the existence of other judicial and administrative matters which must be addressed first.” Ms. Stokley will presumably pursue an interlocutory appeal sometime after the trial court issues a written order.

In re Stokley, No. 05-15-01110-CV

The Texas Supreme Court granted a baker’s dozen worth of petitions for review this morning, including two cases that first made their way through the Dallas Court of Appeals. In CTMI, LLC v. Fischer, the Court of Appeals held that the earn-out provision in an asset purchase agreement was unenforceable because it left the percentages to be used in calculating the earn-out subject to a future agreement. And in Staley Family Partnership v. Stiles, the Court of Appeals rejected an attempt to impose an easement by necessity because one of the two tracts of land was not being used at all when they were severed from each other in 1866.

For over a decade, Sun Tec Computer has been tied up in litigation with its officers and shareholders in Tarrant County. At least one of those former officers formed Tax Debt Acquisition Company and used it to purchase an unpaid judgment against Sun Tec, then filed an application for a turnover order in Dallas County to enforce the judgment. The turnover order was not appealed, and the receiver auctioned off Sun Tec’s claims against the Tarrant County litigants to TDAC. That act of legal jujitsu meant that Sun Tec could no longer proceed with its claims against the shareholders and officers. Sun Tec filed a new suit for a declaratory judgment that the turnover order and the sale of its claims were invalid, but the trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the declaratory judgment was an invalid collateral attack on the turnover order, and that the order itself was not void.

Sun Tec Computer, Inc. v. Recovar Group, LLC, No. 05-14-00257-CV

In 2013, D Magazine published an article that labeled Janay Bender Rosenthal as “The Park Cities Welfare Queen,” based on her receipt of benefits under the Supplemental Nutriotional Assistance Program. Rosenthal sued for libel, and the trial court denied the magazine’s anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss. The Court of Appeals affirmed, over the dissent of Justice Brown. The majority held that Rosenthal had established a prima facie case for defamation because the “gist” of the article was an accusation of welfare fraud, which the opinion backs up with a colorful history of the term “welfare queen.” Justice Brown disagreed, arguing that the article was a satirical critique of a welfare system “that allows a woman with a criminal history of theft, living in a million-dollar home, and taking advantage of the highly rated school system of a wealthy enclave, to collect food stamps.”

D Magazine Partners, L.P. v. Rosenthal (majority), No. 05-12-00951-CV

D Magazine Partners, L.P. v. Rosenthal (dissent)

Starting off our review of Friday night’s wave of opinions is a hedge fund securities case arising out of the 2008 financial crash. Plaintiffs contended that the defendants had falsely misrepresented that other investors’ redemption requests “were not significant,” leaving them in the lurch when the fund imploded. The trial court granted summary judgment for the defendants, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Plaintiffs sought to avoid a “scheme of arrangement” issued by the Bermuda Supreme Court that established how the fund was to be liquidated, but the Court of Appeals held that the plaintiffs were bound by that instrument as a foreign judgment. The Court also held that there was no evidence of reliance by the plaintiffs on the defendants’ alleged misrepresentations, concluding that their testimony was speculative on what they would have done if they had been informed of the true rate of redemption.

LV Highland Credit Feeder Fund LLC v. Highland Credit Strategies Fund, LP, No. 05-13-01118-CV

On the one hand, we’re totally in favor of whoever is running txcourts.gov making opinions appear the same day they’re issued. It hasn’t happened for the last 2+ years, but yay for timeliness.

And we’re also okay with seeing it happen sometime other than 3-6 am the next day (a time we’ve noted due to the general unlikelihood of being awake during those hours).

But if you want to see ~150 pages of substantive opinions made public at one time, please allow us to introduce you to the last Friday in August.

Gonna read ’em. Just not right now.

150 pages of opinions because it’s August.

In early 2012, the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed a temporary injunction that would have prevented BB&T from foreclosing on a pair of properties secured by a $10 million promissory note. Two and a half years later, matters have not improved for the borrowers, as the Court has now affirmed summary judgment for the bank.

In responding to the no-evidence summary judgment motion, the borrowers had “relied entirely on evidence presented at the temporary judgment hearing” to show that they had a valid contract with BB&T that superseded the bank’s right to foreclose. Because the Court had previously held that this evidence amounted to nothing more than an unenforceable “agreement to agree,” the law of the case doctrine prevented the outcome from being any different in this subsequent appeal. The same evidence was also held to be insufficient to support the borrowers’ claims for fraud and declaratory judgment, while a money had and received claim failed because the borrowers had made a $1.8 million payment with full knowledge of the facts and without fraud or duress. Finally, the trial court had not abused its discretion by striking the borrowers’ fifth amended petition because it had been filed outside the deadline in the court’s scheduling order, was not filed with leave of court, and was prejudicial to the bank because it sought to add a claim that “would effectively inject new substantive matters into the litigation by reinjecting old ones.”

TCI Luna Ventures, LLC v. Branch Banking & Tr. Co., No. 05-13-01221-CV

Almost a year after the Ebola virus and dozens of news crews arrived in Dallas, the Court of Appeals has conditionally granted mandamus to prevent Texas Health Resources’ insurer from being required to produce a privileged note regarding a plaintiff’s Ebola-related claims. Nina Pham, who contracted the disease while working as a nurse at Presbyterian Hospital, has sued THR on a variety of tort claims for the injuries she sustained from the disease. The single document at issue reflects a conversation among the insurer’s claims adjuster, THR’s associate general counsel, and its risk manager. Although the insurer and its claims adjuster were not parties to the lawsuit, the Court nevertheless held that the communications reflected in the document were privileged. Because the note was made in the course of investigating Pham’s claim, and because the insurer represents the employer rather than itself on claims involving the employer’s liability policy, the note reflected a confidential communication within the scope of the attorney-client privilege.

In re Texas Health Resources, No 05-15-00813-CV

After a bidding process, TXU entered into a contract with Fort Bend I.S.D. in 2010 to supply electricity for one year. The following year, the parties extended the contract period to 2014. But in 2012, the school district decided not to continue purchasing electricity because the extension has not been competitively procured as required by the Texas Education Code. TXU sued, but the trial court granted the school district’s plea to the jurisdiction based on governmental immunity. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Because the extension had not gone through a competitive bidding process, it was not “authorized by statute,” and therefore there was not waiver of governmental immunity under the Local Government Contract Claims Act.

TXU Energy Retail Co. L.L.C. v. Fort Bend Indep. Sch. Dist., No. 05-14-01515-CV

The guarantors of a construction loan agreement and promissory note sought to avoid a deficiency judgment by disputing a successor bank’s summary judgment evidence that it was the holder of the note. The Dallas Court of Appeals was having none of that oft-repeated claim. In the absence of controverting evidence, affidavit testimony and a copy of the note are sufficient to prove it up for summary judgment purposes, and an affidavit is likewise sufficient to establish ownership or assignment of the note. Because none of the summary judgment evidence contradicted the bank’s affidavit testimony, summary judgment for the deficiency was properly granted. The Court went on to rule that the bank was not required to include a complete history of payment activity on the account as part of its summary judgment evidence, and that the guarantors’ own affidavits did not create a fact issue on the issue of the property’s fair market value.

Cha v. Branch Banking & Trust Co., No. 05-14-00926-CV

Glen Stover was assaulted by two judgment-proof college students at a party in 2010, resulting in multiple surgeries, a shattered wrist and face, stitches, and broken teeth. He signed a contingency-fee agreement with John H. Carney & Associates, which provided for a 33% fee if the matter was settled before suit was filed. In the meantime, a criminal case proceeded against at least one of the assailants, Drew McClure, who agreed to accept a plea deal that included $100,000 in restitution to the victim. When that check was tendered to Carney by McClure’s father, Carney retained funds that he claimed as his contingency fee. A Dallas County district court disagreed, and the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the restitution was paid in satisfaction of McClure’s deferred adjudication order, not in settlement of any civil claim. The Court did not reach the question of whether an attorney could ever legally claim a fee from a criminal restitution payment, but noted in dicta that “we strongly discourage attorneys from engaging in such practices.”

John H. Carney & Assocs. v. Office of Attorney General, No. 05-13-01325-CV

Sylvester Davis sued TexPro Construction Group after the contractor failed to complete a backyard construction project. When TexPro failed to file an answer, Davis sought and obtained a partial default judgment on liability. TexPro then answered, but Davis moved forward with a hearing to establish damages. TexPro did not appear at the hearing, and the trial court awarded judgment for $117,230 in compensatory damages, treble damages under the DTPA and $350,000 in exemplary damages. After blowing through the deadlines for an ordinary appeal, TexPro hired new counsel and filed a restricted appeal. The Court of Appeals held that there was no error on the face of the record just because TexPro’s registered agent had been served at a location different from the address listed on the citation. The Court also held that there was no error in the trial court’s decision to move forward with the damages hearing, since the filing of TexPro’s answer did not negate the previously-signed default judgment on liability. However, Davis’ testimony on damages was the full amount of the money paid to TexPro, without accounting for the value of the work that TexPro had actually performed. Because his affidavit testimony was conclusory in alleging that the work done was valueless, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded for a new trial on damages.

TexPro Constr. Group, LLC v. Davis, No. 05-14-00050-CV

Law360 writer Jess Davis takes a look at five Texas Supreme Court cases on the court’s argument calendar for this fall, and we were happy to pitch in with some punditry on a couple of them. The TV Azteca case is a really interesting mix of personal jurisdiction, defamation, pop superstardom, and international sex scandal, while BCCA has the potential to reshape the balance between the state legislature and home-rule municipalities. And while we’ll conspicuously refrain from comment on a couple of the other cases, all five are well worth following.

As our colleague 600Camp noted earlier today, the ABA Journal is sponsoring a “Blawg 100″ list recognizing law blogs (Bob Loblaw’s and otherwise). Since campaigning is actively encouraged, we’d really appreciate it if any of our readers would put in a good word for either (or preferably both) of our 600’s. Just click here to fill out the ABA’s short form.

JPMorgan, as Trustee of the Red Crest Trust, signed a letter of intent for Orca Assets to lease oil and gas properties in the Eagle Ford Shale. Unfortunately, JPMorgan had leased those same properties to GeoSouthern Energy six months earlier. GeoSouthern recorded its lease three days after Orca signed the letter of intent with JPMorgan, but Orca did not conduct any forward-looking title searches after the letter of intent. Orca proceeded to sign the leases a month later and promptly recorded them. GeoSouthern then contacted JPMorgan about the duplicate leases, and the bank promptly offered to refund Orca’s $3.2 million lease payment. Instead, Orca sued for $400 million in lost profits. At a Rule 166 pretrial conference, the trial court dismissed all of Orca’s claims, ruling that the leases unambiguously disclaimed any warranties, and that Orca could not establish justifiable reliance as a matter of law. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed in part, holding that the disclaimers in the leases foreclosed Orca’s breach of contract claim, but not fraud and negligent misrepresentation.

Under the express language of the contractual disclaimer, Orca was to be “without recourse” under the lease if title to the oil and gas interests failed. That was sufficient to negate contract liability for JPMorgan’s failure to convey good title, but not fraud and negligent misrepresentation. Noting that the leases did not also include any provisions disclaiming reliance on any extra-contractual representations, the Court held that Orca could proceed with claims based on an oral representation that the properties in question were “open” for lease. In the course of that holding, the Court analyzes a number of other recent fraudulent inducement cases, leaving the distinct impression that courts are going to continue drawing some pretty narrow distinctions in the wake of the Texas Supreme Court’s Italian Cowboy opinion.

Orca Assets, G.P., LLC v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 05-13-01700-CV

The owner of an apartment complex sued the builder for construction defect claims. The defendant moved for summary judgment on limitations and lack of notice, which is an element of the plaintiff’s express warranty claim. The trial court granted the summary judgment motion without specifying the grounds. For reasons that are not clear from the opinion, the appellant limited its issues on appeal to the express warranty claim, but only addressed the limitations argument. That resulted in affirmation of the summary judgment ruling.  Because the appellant failed to challenge the other ground — i.e., lack of notice — on which summary judgment could have been granted, the Court of Appeals upheld the judgment based on the unchallenged ground.

ZZ&Z Props., Ltd. v. ZCC-ZPL,LLP, No. 05-14-00812-CV

A guarantor ignored the efforts of a court-appointed receiver to collect on an agreed judgment and subsequent turnover orders. The debtor eventually paid the judgment, but Frost Bank sought recovery of additional attorney fees incurred in enforcing the judgment. The trial court awarded $160,000 in attorney fees and approved the receiver’s fee of $129,000. The Court of Appeals reversed as to the attorney fees, holding that fees could not be recovered based on the contractual guarantee because the bank’s claims under that instrument were merged with and extinguished by the final judgment. Nor could post-judgment attorney fees be awarded under the turnover statute because the defendant had actually paid the judgment. However, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in approving the receiver’s fee — calculated as 10% of the sale proceeds from the defendant’s stock — as the court had conducted a hearing and determined that the fee was fair, reasonable, and necessary.

Evans v. Frost Nat’l Bank, No. 05-12-01491

“The parties are owners of adjoining property whose homes overlook a golf course. The Roses built a fence that blocked the view from the Bonvinos’ home. The ensuing legal dispute has lasted almost a decade.” That description begins a memorandum opinion affirming a Collin County trial court’s order enforcing a permanent injunction requiring the Roses to reduce the maximum height of their fence to 6 feet. The case hinged on the trial court’s finding that the “2012 Fence” exceeded 6 feet when measured from the “unaltered and unimproved grade.”

And thus, peace and tranquility were restored to Far North Dallas.

Rose v. Bonvino, No. 05-14-007020-CV

A Republican primary battle for the office of Kaufman County commissioner (precinct 2) resulted in a defamation claim against the challenger’s media consultant. It seems that two days before the election, a website went up that strongly implied the incumbent, Ray Clark, had intervened in multiple child molestation cases brought against his “nephew,” Stoney Adams. resulting in the charges being dismissed. A series of mailed-out fliers made similar allegations. In reality, Adams was only distantly related through a series of marriages on Clark’s wife’s side of the family, and Clark averred that he had never done anything to support or assist Adams in any criminal case. Based on those facts, the trial court denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss under the TCPA, finding that Clark had established a prima facie case for each element of his defamation claims. The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting the defendants’ argument that the statements were protected as “rhetorical hyperbole.” Similarly, the statements were not protected as non-actionable opinions just because they were attributed to Adams’ ex-wife, but were instead capable of being defamatory because they implied knowledge that Clark really had intervened in Adams’ child molestation cases. As for actual malice, the Court of Appeals credited Clark’s argument that the defendants had “carefully attempted to distance themselves” from the defamatory statements, which in turn demonstrated that they “entertained serious doubts” about them.

Campbell v. Clark, No. 05-14-01056-CV

The appeal of an oil and gas dispute has led to a multi-million dollar swing in favor of the appellants. The district court had granted a $14 million summary judgment in favor of the seller of oil and gas interests located in New Mexico. The fact scenario is somewhat complex, but the essence seems to be that Three Rivers Operating Co. offered to sell its interests in five properties to MRC Permian Co. pursuant to a preferential purchase right provision in their joint operating agreement. MRC accepted that proposal, for a purchase price of just under $7 million, and further wrote that it was exercising a preferential right to purchase “one hundred percent (100%) of Three Rivers’ interest in the land comprising the Contract Area . . . .” Three Rivers responded to say that there were actually 10 properties for sale for approximately $14 million. MRC then wrote back that it was ready to move forward on Three Rivers’ original offer, but Three Rivers nevertheless concluded that MRC had agreed to buy all ten properties. On cross-motions for summary judgment, the district court entered judgment for Three Rivers, requiring MRC to specifically perform the $14 million deal. The Court of Appeals reversed and rendered judgment for MRC that there was only a $7 million contract for the original five properties.

Three Rivers argued that the initial $7 million offer had been made under a mistaken interpretation of the preferential purchase right clause, and that MRC did not accept that offer in any event because its acceptance letter was actually a counteroffer to buy all of Three Rivers’ interests covered by the JOA. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that MRC did not condition its acceptance of the $7 million offer on Three Rivers’ assent to sell any additional properties. So long as it is clear that the acceptance is positive and unequivocal, a contract is formed regardless of whether the offeree makes additional requests at the same time. And when Three Rivers offered to sell all 10 of its properties, that was not an acceptance of an offer by MRC to purchase “100%” of Three Rivers’ interests. MRC had not stated the essential terms of a contract, including purchase price, nor did MRC’s letter indicate any acceptance of a prior offer by MRC. Instead, Three Rivers’ $14 million offer letter was an independent offer of its own, and MRC did not accept it in the manner specified by Three Rivers. The Court of Appeals therefore reversed the trial court’s judgment, rendered judgment for MRC on the $7 million contract, and remanded for consideration of MRC’s costs and attorney fees.

MRC Permian Co. v. Three Rivers Operating Co., No. 05-14-00353-CV

Attorney Robert Cole failed to pay a court reporting service, Gwendolyn Parker, Inc., for the transcripts of two depositions. The Court of Appeals affirmed judgment in favor of the court reporter. Cole argued that Tex. Gov’t Code § 52.059 only allowed individual court reporters to sue for their fees, but the Court rejected that argument. Under that statute, the attorney who takes the deposition and his firm are jointly and severally liable for the court reporter’s charges unless other arrangements are stated on the record. Because nothing in the language of the statute limits the payment obligation to individual court reporters, Cole could not escape from his statutory liability to GPI. The Court also held that Cole could not prevail on the affirmative defense of failure of consideration or a counterclaim for damages because the record did not show that he pleaded either matter in response to the court reporter’s suit.

Cole v. Gwendolyn Parker, Inc., No. 05-13-01655-CV

The Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed the order confirming an arbitration award in favor of our firm’s client, Steven Pully. As explained in the Court’s opinion, Mr. Pully sued his former employer, Newcastle Capital Management, alleging that the company owed him substantial amounts of unpaid compensation. But some of his claims were also subject to arbitration, and the arbitrator ruled in favor of Mr. Pully. The district court affirmed the arbitration award, and that portion of the case was eventually severed from the remaining claims in the lawsuit. On appeal, Newcastle challenged the scope of the arbitration clause, which covered “[a]ny dispute, controversy or claim arising out of or relating to” the parties’ agreements. The Court noted that the phrase “relates to” is very broad, and that a claim relates to a contract “if it has a significant relationship with or touches matters covered by the contract.” Under that standard, Mr. Pully’s claims did indeed relate to the parties’ contracts, making the dispute arbitrable. The Court also rejected Newcastle’s argument that the parties’ oral agreement was against public policy, and therefore affirmed the arbitration award in its entirety.

Schwarz v. Pully, No. 05-14-00615-CV

The Court of Appeals has reversed a summary judgment in favor of the attorney defendants in a civil barratry case. The plaintiffs were victims of a pipeline explosion. Their case against the pipeline company eventualy settled, and the lawyers collected their 40% contingency fee. But the plaintiffs learned that they had actually been solicited by a private investigator working for their attorneys, so they sued to rescind the fee agreement and recover their contingency fees. The Court of Appeals agreed that rescission was an available remedy for barratry, and that the attorney defendants had not established their former clients would be unable to make counter-restitution for the benefits they had received from the lawyers.

Neese v. Lyon, No. 05-13-01597-CV

After the real estate bubble burst in 2008, borrowers attempted all sorts of ways to get out of their obligations. Most notably, debtors repeatedly challenged the ways that their mortgages had been transferred and recorded (or not) by the banks that had held, swapped, sold, and securitized them. Long story short, it hardly ever worked, as courts across the country mostly (but not always) eschewed technical arguments in favor of the big picture of who owed what to whom. But a new opinion from the Dallas Court of Appeals shows that when the bank doesn’t follow the rules in litigation, the debtors may still escape liability on a loan.

In this instance, a pair of individual guarantors for a $748,000 loan were sued by Wells Fargo after the borrower defaulted. While the case was pending, Wells Fargo allegedly assigned the loan documents to another entity, Apex. Wells Fargo’s attorneys later filed a motion for withdrawal and substitution, which the trial court granted. The motion failed to mention the assignment of the loan documents to Apex. The guarantors then filed for no-evidence summary judgment, pointing out that Wells Fargo had conducted no discovery and that the discovery period was closed. The motion argued that there was no evidence to show who owned the guaranty. When Apex appeared and tried to cure that deficiency, the guarantors objected and moved to strike Apex’s summary judgment evidence. The trial court sustained the objections and granted summary judgment. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that it was not an abuse of discretion to exclude Apex’s evidence because it had waited 11 months after acquiring the loan to amend Wells Fargo’s discovery responses by disclosing its ownership. That was not “reasonably prompt,” and it acted as an unfair surprise to the guarantors to have that come out only in response to their summary judgment motion.

LSREF2 Apex (TX) II, LLC v. Blomquist, No. 05-14-00851-CV

A short opinion helps to illustrate the limited reach of an appellate court’s authority over the cases before it. On interlocutory appeal, both litigants agreed that the trial court should have vacated an order appointing a receiver in Texas to serve ancillary to a primary receivership in Minnesota. But in addition to vacting the order appointing the receiver, the appellant also wanted the Court of Appeals to undo all the receiver’s actions. That was beyond the appellate court’s powers however. Pointing to TRAP 43.2, the Court held that it could affirm, modify, reverse and render, reverse and remand, vacate, or dismiss — none of which permitted the Court to grant the additional relief sought by the appellant.

Burlington Resources Oil & Gas Co. LP v. Verde Minerals, LLC, No. 05-15-00014-CV

The Dallas Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court order denying a motion to compel arbitration. The arbitration clause was contained in a contract between a temporary employee and his employment agency, which gave both parties the right to “elect mandatory, binding arbitration for any claim, dispute, or controversy between you, and our clients or us” [sic]. The plaintiff claimed that the arbitration agreement was unenforceable due to substantive unconscionability, lack of consideration, and lack of essential terms. The Court held that nothing in the arbitration agreement demonstrated that the specific manner of arbitration was a material consideration to the parties, noting that the FAA specifically contemplates circumstances in which the parties have not provided for a method of appointment for an arbitrator. The Court also held that the consideration for the overall contract was sufficient to support the arbitration clause as well. Finally, the Court held that the provision was not substantively unconscionable despite its inclusion of a waiver of the right “to take any legal action” because it was not clear that potentially-unconscionable waiver was actually aimed at waiving substantive claims instead of just waiving the right to do so in court instead of arbitration.

Stride Staffing v. Holloway, No. 05-14-00811-CV

The Dallas Court of Appeals has granted mandamus to correct a trial court’s failure to grant special exceptions and dismiss the plaintiff’s claims against the settlor of a royalty trust. The Court held that a beneficiary of the trust had no authority to interfere with the trustee’s exercise of discretionary powers, concluding that the trustee acted within its discretion by refusing to sue the settlor on claims that were precluded by the terms of the trust instruments. Citing the “practical and prudential” mandamus standard of In re Prudential, the Court of Appeals held that mandamus relief was appropriate because allowing the plaintiff to proceed to trial on behalf of the trust would defeat the trustee’s right to control such litigation. But while the settlor of the trust was dismissed from the lawsuit, and the plaintiff could not sue the trustee on behalf of the trust, the Court held that the plaintiff should have the opportunity to amend her petition to sue the trustee solely on her own behalf.

In re XTO Energy, Inc., No. 05-14-01446-CV

600 Commerce always has its eye out for trends in litigation, and a new one may now be emerging: a plague of boards falling off of government walls onto innocent members of the public. A year ago, it was a whiteboard falling off the wall of Dallas Metrocare Services (held: no sovereign immunity because plaintiff pleaded a dangerous “condition” of property with allegation of an improperly secured whiteboard). This time, the Court of Appeals sustained the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s sovereign immunity claim after a notice board fell on plaintiff Joseph McRae. The Court agreed with the Commission that McRae’s claim was one for premises defect, not for “negligent use or condition” of the notice board. Because it was in substance a premises defect claim, McRae was required to plead, and ultimately prove, that the Commission had actual knowledge of the condition that caused his injuries. But it was not clear that McRae would be unable to cure that defect in his pleading, so the Court remanded the matter to the trial court for further proceedings.

Texas Health & Human Servs. Comm’n v. McRae, No. 05-14-00894

With all the TCPA cases running through the appellate courts, it’s worth taking a quick look at one procedural issue. The question presented by way of motion to the Court of Appeals was whether the appellants were required to supersede the attorney fees awarded to the defendants in a judgment dismissing the plaintiffs’ business disparagement claims. The appellate court held that attorney fees are not damages, and therefore the trial court did not err in denying the defendants’ motion to raise the supersedeas amount to include the attorney fees.

Mansik & Young Plaza LLC v. K-Town Mgmt., LLC, No. 05-15-00353-CV

A year ago, the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of an equitable bill of review in which the defendants claimed that the plaintiff had not exercised reasonable diligence in its attempts to effect service through registered mail and personal delivery. The Texas Supreme Court has now set aside that ruling, holding that the defendants had presented some evidence that their failure to receive notice of the default judgment resulted solely from the plaintiff’s failure to certify the defendants’ last known mailing address, and not from any negligence or fault on the defendants’ own part. The record contained evidence that the plaintiff’s owner had met with the defendants’ registered agent at their current address, rather than the outdated address on file with the Secretary of State, that raised a genuine issue of material fact as to the validity of the plaintiff’s “last known mailing address” certification.

Katy Venture, Ltd. v. Cremona Bistro, LLC, No. 14-0629

Clyde Parks signed a $10,000 promissory note, bearing 15% interest and secured by Super Bowl tickets, in favor of Scott Seybold. Parks defaulted on the note, but did make some sporadic payments before limitations expired. When Seybold demanded payment after the limitations period had expired, Parks responded with emails stating that he was working to get the note paid and that he was not ignoring it. That was enough for both the trial court and the Dallas Court of Appeals to conclude that the claim was not barred by limitations, because the debtor had acknowledged the debt, in writing, as a current obligation. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.065. The Court of Appeals rejected Parks’ argument that he had not “signed” the emails pursuant to the Texas Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, affirming the trial court’s finding that the “Thank you, Clyde” salutation in each email was intended to be Parks’ signature. Notably, the Court of Appeals pointed out that it was expressing no opinion on whether the automatically-generated name and contact information block at the end of each email could constitute an electronic signature.

Parks v. Seybold, No. 05-13-00694-CV

The Court of Appeals has affirmed a jury verdict and judgment of approximately $705,000 in a contract dispute between a medical products manufacturer and a distributor. The parties’ agreement prohibited the distributor from selling undisclosed competing products and allowed the manufacturer to terminate the agreement for cause if the distributor violated that provision. The manufacturer terminated the agreement, and the distributor filed suit. On appeal, the manufacturer argued that multiple affirmative defenses should have defeated the distributor’s claim as a matter of law, but the Court of Appeals disagreed. There was some evidence in the record that the distributor had disclosed the competing products, and a rather confusing jury question that combined breach with the defenses of prior material breach and waiver led to the manufacturer’s failure to challenge all independent grounds for the jury’s verdict. And with respect to a number of additional issues, the Court of Appeals generally held that the manufacturer had failed to present them to the trial court of preserve their arguments for appeal.

Blackstone Med., Inc. v. Phoenix Surgicals, LLC, No. 05-13-00870-CV

The parties in a workplace injury lawsuit entered into a Rule 11 agreement to abate the suit while they conducted limited discovery and mediation. A second Rule 11 agreement continued the abatement until one of the parties would file a motion to re-open the case. Notwithstanding those Rule 11 agreements, the parties were also subject to a binding arbitration clause contained in the employer’s injury benefit plan. The parties disputed whether they had each complied with their discovery obligations under the Rule 11 agreements, which led the employer to move to re-open and to compel arbitration. The trial court denied the motion and ordered that the case remain abated until the Rule 11 discovery was completed.

The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed. The Court first held that the case was subject to interlocutory appeal because the trial court’s order “affirmatively denies Baylor’s motion to compel arbitration over at least a portion of the proceeding . . . .” (The opinion noted that this holding conflicts with a pair of decisions out of the El Paso Court of Appeals, possibly setting up the case for further review by the Texas Supreme Court.) As to the discovery, the Court agreed with the defendant that the Rule 11 had expired by its own terms when the employer moved to re-open the lawsuit, mooting the completion of the agreed-upon discovery as an ongoing issue. But because the trial court had not actually ruled on the employer’s motion to compel arbitration, the Court of Appeals remanded for formal consideration of the case’s arbitrability.

Baylor Univ. Med. Ctr. v. Greeson, No. 05-14-01342-CV

A nasty Zillow review of a real estate agent prompted a defamation lawsuit, which these days pretty much inevitably leads to a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens’ Participation Act. In this instance, the agent had listed the seller’s house as “temporarily off market” instead of “active.” The Collin County trial court denied the seller’s motion to dismiss, but the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed. The seller’s claim that the agent had listed the house as being off market for “over 100 days” was incorrect, but the Court held that the falsity of that statement was immaterial because the agent had actually listed the property that was for 64 days instead. The plaintiffs also failed to establish that listing the house as off market was in accordance with the seller’s instructions, as her complaint that she “did not want her property shown” was not the equivalent of asking it to be listed as “temporarily off market.” Finally, the plaintiffs could not base their defamation case on the seller’s statement that the agent was “incompetent, mentally unstable, or raging from rejection” because those were non-actionable statements of opinion. The Court therefore rendered judgment for the defendant and remanded for a determination of her costs and recoverable attorney fees.

Ruder v. Jordan, No. 05-14-01265-CV

Readers may recall the recent dust-up over a collection of movie posters held by an auction house. In a new case, the disputed collection consists of Broadway theater window cards, which a Texas resident had shipped to an Internet reseller in Vermont. The owner filed suit in Dallas, alleging the reseller had breached the parties’ oral contract by failing to pay him for the cards sold, failing to return the unsold cards to him, and failing to safeguard the cards. The defendants filed a special appearance, which the trial court granted and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Although the primary defendant had made payment to the plaintiff in Texas, an agreement to make payments in the forum state does not weigh heavily in the “calculus of [minimum] contacts.” Although there were multiple conflicts in the parties’ accounts of their dealings, the Court of Appeals deferred to the trial court’s resolution of the factual discrepancies, and the remaining, undisputed facts did not demonstrate purposeful availment of Texas as a forum for the transactions at issue.

Klug v. Wickert, No. 05-14-00080-CV

A premises liability case between tenant and landlord highlights a potential problem in obtaining a proper waiver of trial by jury. Concerned that the jury would be unable to understand the pro se defendant’s broken English, the trial court first requested a translator. After being informed that no translator would be available for another week, the court continued the trial, then asked the defendant whether he would agree to waive a jury. The defendant agreed, but was not asked to confirm his waiver a week later when the case proceeded to a bench trial with the aid of an interpreter. The trial court awarded $70,000 in damages to the plaintiff. On appeal, the defendant (now also represented by counsel) argued that the jury waiver was invalid because it was made before he had obtained the services of the court-appointed interpreter. The Court of Appeals agreed, holding once the trial court has exercised its discretion to appoint an interpreter, the defendant was entitled to have that interpreter for all purposes, including the decision whether to waive his constitutional right to a jury trial. Without the interpreter, the Court of Appeals could not conclude that the defendant had knowingly waived that right.

Trejo v. Huy, No. 05-14-00310-CV

While we’ve skipped blogging about most of the Dallas Court of Appeals’ forcible detainer cases — long story short, lenders routinely evict residents when the mortgage hasn’t been paid — this one is not exactly routine. The trial court awarded possession of a Burger King restaurant to the landlord, Huge American Real Estate after the tenant remodeled the restaurant without obtaining Huge American’s consent. The Court of Appeals sustained the trial court’s finding that the remodel was a material breach of the lease agreement, holding that Fritz Management’s continued payment of rent did not obviate the contractual requirement of consent to any renovations.

Fritz Mgmt., LLC v. Huge Am. Real Estate, Inc., No. 05-14-00681-CV

Bruce Bernstein wrecked his Porsche, then sued his insurer for violations of the Insurance Code and DTPA. An appraiser valued the car at $4900, and Safeco had tendered a check for $5287.50. The trial court granted summary judgment for Safeco, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Bernstein could not recover under the prompt payment provisions of the Insurance Code because Safeco had timely paid the appraisal award, nor could he recover for bad faith because he did not appeal the adverse judgment on his breach of contract claim. Bernstein also could not recover on his fraud claim because he could not identify any misrepresentation by Safeco that would have led him to believe the insurer would cover “the true value of the car,” which he apparently claimed to be “the investment he made to the Porsche beyond the basic value of the car.”

Bernstein v. Safeco Ins. Co. of Ill., No. 05-13-01533-CV

Jacque Evans and her new husband, Guy Gilliland, formed Nine Syllables, LLC for the purpose of purchasing a note signed by Jacque and her previous husband, Gary Evans. When Jacque and Gary divorced, the note went into default, and the lender sought to foreclose. Jacque joined the lender to the divorce proceeding to enjoin the foreclosure sale, arguing (based on law that has since been amended) the note was an impermissible lien against the homestead, and that the penalty for an illegal lien was forfeiture of all principal and interest due under the note. In the meantime, the lender filed a separate lawsuit against Jacque for payment of the note, and she took the same position in that case. The divorce case eventually settled, with Jacque taking the alleged homestead and Gary assuming liability for the note. The collections case also settled, with Nine Syllables agreeing to purchase the note from the lender. Nine then sought to collect on the note from Gary, despite Jacque’s consistent position in the previous lawsuits that it was illegal and unenforceable. After a bench trial, the trial court agreed with Gary that Nine’s claim was barred by judicial estoppel, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Although Nine Syllables had not been a party to the previous lawsuits, Jaque was in privity with Nine and had consistently testified and argued that the note was unenforceable.

Nine Syllables, LLC v. Evans, No. 05-13-01677-CV

Former GOP Senate candidate Chris Mapp sued the Dallas Morning News for defamation after it published an editorial stating Mapp had told the editorial board “that ranchers should be allowed to shoot on sight anyone illegally crossing the border on their land, referring to such people as ‘wetbacks,’ and called the president a ‘socialist son of a bitch.'” Mapp claimed that the “shoot on sight” comment had been taken out of context because he had actually said ranchers should be permitted to shoot when they were in “fear for their life” or in defense of property, the same as anybody else. The News filed a motion to dismiss under the TCPA, but the 30-day statutory period after the hearing passed without a ruling by the trial court. That caused the motion to be overruled by operation of law, and the newspaper perfected an interlocutory appeal. The trial court then issued an order granting the motion to dismiss, albeit outside the prescribed time period.

This raised two questions for the Dallas Court of Appeals: What was the effect of the late-issued dismissal order, and should the case have been dismissed on the merits in any event? As to the first question, the Court held that the untimely dismissal order was a nullity. On the merits, the Court held that Mapp (who was a public figure) had not met his prima facie burden of showing that the newspaper had published the allegedly defamatory statements with constitutional malice. Paraphrasing or deliberately altering another person’s words does not establish actual malice unless there is evidence the defendant misinterpreted the remarks on purpose or in circumstances so improbable that the mistake could only have been recklessly. The Court concluded that the newspaper’s paraphrase of the statements Mapp had made in his tape-recorded interview was a rational interpretation of what he had said, and Mapp had not submitted any evidence to contradict the reporter’s affidavit explaining his subjective intent. The Court of Appeals therefore concluded that the trial court had erred by allowing the motion to dismiss to be overruled by operation of law, rendered judgment that Mapp’s case be dismised, and remanded to the trial court for a determination of the DMN’s costs, fees, and other recoverable expenses.

The Dallas Morning News, Inc. v. Mapp, No. 05-14-00848-CV

A long-running suit over a 1999 contract for the sale of a house resulted in a mistrial, followed by cross-motions for death penalty sanctions. The seller sought sanctions for discovery abuse and fraud, while the buyer claimed the seller had testified falsely at trial. The trial court granted both motions, striking everyone’s pleadings. Both sides appealed, and the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. As to the buyer, the trial court had not considered the availability of lesser sanctions, and the fabrication of one construction estimate did not give rise to a presumption that other claims not based on that document were meritless. As to the seller, the death penalty sanction was disproportionate to the seriousness of the offense. The seller had testified that she paid a property tax bill with a credit card when records showed it was actually paid with cash and a check. Although the trial court found that misstatement was intentional, the Court of Appeals did not consider the discrepancy to be material enough to warrant the striking of her entire case.

Kim v. Hendrickson, No. 05-13-01024-CV

The U.S. Supreme Court may be poised to decide the validity of same-sex marriage bans nationwide, but the Texas Supreme Court has managed to have its voice heard to declare that it doesn’t have anything to say. Because the State of Texas was too late in seeking to intervene in a same-sex divorce, the Supreme Court held (5-3) that it could not appeal that decree. Justice Willett authored the lead dissent, which would have had the Court address the matter on the merits, while Justice Devine dissented on the merits of same-sex marriage under Texas law. So with that out of the way, everyone can turn their eyes back to 1 First St., NE.

State v. Naylor

Boyd concurrence

Willett dissent

Devine dissent

A memorandum opinion setting aside a default judgment highlights one of the more forgiving standards for obtaining a new trial. FelCor/CSS Holdings sued Culinaire of Florida for failing to indemnify it in two personal injury suits. Culinaire received a courtesy copy of the lawsuit and put its insurer on notice. The insurer in turn hired defense counsel. But when the actual citation arrived, Culinaire’s CFO somehow forgot to forward it to the company’s insurance agent. Culinaire moved for a new trial under the familiar Craddock factors, but the trial court denied the motion. The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded, holding that losing paperwork is precisely the kind of “accident or mistake” that negates “conscious indifference” to the lawsuit.

Culinaire of Florida, Inc. v. FelCor/CSS Holdings, LP, No. 05-14-00832-CV

After a jury awarded millions of dollars in damages and the Court of Appeals affirmed, the defendants in that case decided to become plaintiffs by suing their lawyers at Andrews Kurth. The county court at law granted summary judgment for the defendants, and the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed. In a malpractice case based on an attorney’s conduct in connection with litigation, the plaintiff has to demonstrate that it would have prevailed in the prior case but for the lawyer’s negligence. Concluding that the plaintiffs’ proof on that point was conclusory and speculative, the Court held that there was no evidence in the summary judgment record to establish causation of any injury to the plaintiffs.

Rogers v. Zanetti, No. 05-14-00733-CV

Three of four defendants filed motions to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act, all of which were granted by the district court. The plaintiffs sought interlocutory review of those rulings, but the Dallas Court of Appeals concluded that it did not have jurisdiction to review the rulings. Because the claims against the fourth defendant were still pending, there was no final, appealable judgment in the case. Under the 2013 version of CPRC § 51.014(a)(12), only orders denying a TCPA motion to dismiss are subject to interlocutory appeal, and the current version of the TCPA itself only authorizes interlocutory appeals when the motion has been overruled by operation of law due to the trial court’s failure to rule within 30 days. The plaintiffs will therefore have to wait until final judgment before appealing the TCPA dismissals.

Horton v. Martin, No. 05-15-00015-CV

A car fell on David Fusaro at the house of his friend, Christopher Becherer. The car was owned by Becherer’s mother, and the pair were working on her brakes. Becherer’s homeowner’s insurer denied coverage, relying on an exclusion for injuries “arising out of the ownership, maintenance, operation, use, loading or unloading of: Motor or engine propelled vehicles or machines designed for movement on land . . . which are owned or operated by or rented or loaned to an insured.” After Fusaro obtained a $1.1 million judgment, Becherer assigned his coverage claim to Fusaro, who lost the coverage case on summary judgment. Fusaro argued that Becherer’s mother’s case was not “owned or operated by or rented or loaned to” Becherer, but the Court of Appeals affirmed. Construing the words in light of their ordinary meaning, Becherer’s mother had loaned the vehicle to her son, and he was operating the vehicle by performing ordinary acts of maintenance on it.

Fusaro v. Trinity Universal Ins. Co., No. 05-14-00481-CV

For 15 years, Steven Anderson was a route driver for Greenville Automatic Gas Co. Anderson quit and went to work for Automatic Propane Gas & Supply, leading Greenville to invoke an employment agreement that it claimed included both a a covenant not to compete and a nonsolicit provision. Anderson and Automatic Propane sued for a declaratory judgment, alleging (after a series of amendments to the pleadings) that Anderson had only signed a shorter contract that contained neither of the terms claimed by Greenville. The jury found that Anderson has not agreed to the terms claimed by Greenville and awarded him approximately $75,000 in attorney fees. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed, holding that Anderson and Automatic Gas could not dispute the validity of Greenville’s contract because they had failed to timely file a verified pleading denying its validity, as required by TRCP 93. The Court of Appeals also affirmed summary judgment against Greenville on its tort-based counterclaims and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Greenville Automatic Gas Co. v. Automatic Propane Gas & Supply, LLC, No. 05-13-01405-CV

The builder of a nursing facility sued the City of Kemp for breach of contract and con-tort claims, alleging that the city had failed to honor a tax abatement deal agreed upon before construction. The city promptly obtained dismissal of the case on grounds of governmental immunity. On appeal, the builder’s first issue claimed that “the concept of governmental immunity — even if not otherwise specifically waived — simply does not apply to the proprietary actions that form the basis of [the builder’s] claims.” The Court of Appeals disagreed. While a municipality is not immune from torts committed in the performance of “proprietary functions,” the assessment and collection of taxes is a quintessentially governmental function.

Douglas v. City of Kemp, Texas, No. 05-14-00475-CV

After obtaining a judgment against the guarantor of a $250,000 debt, plaintiff Elexis Rice sought a turnover order for certain intangible items of property, including internet domain names and website registrations using the name “cre8stone.” Cre8 International — which was not the judgment debtor — appeared in court to contest the turnover, contending that the domains were its own property. The trial court concluded otherwise, and the Court of Appeals affirmed that aspect of the turnover order. Although a trial court cannot ordinarily adjudicate third parties’ ownership rights in a turnover proceeding, the appearance of that third party in court rendered it subject to the trial court’s ruling on the matter. However, Cre8 managed to retain its email addresses and telephone number, as there was no evidence in the record showing that they were actually owed by the judgment debtor.

Cre8 Int’l, LLC v. Rice, No. 05-14-00377-CV

One of the questions appellate lawyers get from time to time is “What’s our deadline to file for mandamus?” The answer is that there is no formal deadline under the rules, but if you wait too long you may end up waiving your right to mandamus. A short opinion from the Dallas Court of Appeals exemplifies the latter principle. On June 6, 2014, the county court at law granted a motion for new trial. On May 27, 2015, a mandamus petition was filed, seeking to require the trial judge to explain its reasons for setting aside the jury verdict and granting a new trial. With the new trial now scheduled for July 8, the Court of Appeals held that the unexplained delay of almost one year to challenge the new trial ruling was too long to justify mandamus relief.

In re Stembridge, No. 05-15-00672-CV

One of the messiest cases in recent memory has resulted in a 79-page opinion and judgment that disposes of the case in almost every way imaginable: “Our decision in this case is to vacate, in part, affirm, in part, dismiss, in part, and reverse and remand to the trial court, in part.” The case arose out of a lease executed by Fitness Evolution, its subsequent acquisition by Headhunter Fitness, a series of personal guarantys, assignments, representations, and just about everything else one might find in a bar exam essay question. Since this one pretty much defies summary, we will instead report that while summary judgment was affirmed on some claims, the end result is that most everybody involved will be remanded to the Collin County trial court for additional proceedings.

Fitness Evolution, LP v. Headhunter Fitness, LLC, No. 05-13-00506-CV

A surveying company named TBE Group contracted with a competing surveying company, Lina T. Ramey & Associates, to locate utility lines for transportation and construction projects. After one lawsuit, the parties entered into a “Strategic Alliance Agreement” that would govern their ongoing relationship. But Ramey did not generate the amount of business required by the agreement, and the parties sued one another for breach of contract. The trial court granted TBE’s motion for summary judgment and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that Ramey had failed to come forward with more than a scintilla of evidence that it had fulfilled its part of the contract. Although Raney’s summary judgment affidavit referenced checks that were supposed to demonstrate Raney’s performance, the checks were not attached to the affidavit. That failure rendered the affidavit conclusory and of no evidentiary value.

Lina T. Ramey & Assocs., Inc. v. TBE Group, Inc., No. 05-13-01711-CV

A settlement agreement between two groups of real estate partners released all of the parties claims in connection with two named lawsuits, but did not include any release for a third lawsuit. The third case proceeded in litigation for another two years before the defendants decided that the plaintiffs’ decision to continue the lawsuit was a breach of the prior settlement agreement. So the defendant filed a fourth lawsuit for declaratory judgment, breach of contract, and related tort claims. On the first day of trial in lawsuit #4, the court ruled that the settlement agreement did not include the third lawsuit, then granted directed verdict on all of the plaintiff’s claims. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the settlement language unambiguously referred  to lawsuit #1 and # 2, not to lawsuit #3.

Mikob Props., Inc. v. Joachim, No. 05-13-01613-CV

On Thursday, Progressive Insurance filed a mandamus petition complaining that the trial court has not ruled on its motion to allow the late designation of a medical expert. On Friday, the Dallas Court of Appeals denied mandamus, holding that there was nothing in the record demonstrating that the trial court did not intend to rule on the matter before trial. Trial is set to commence today.

In re Progressive County Mut. Ins. Co., No. 05-15-00622-CV

A series of oil and gas investments led to a lawsuit between BV Energy Partners and Richard Cheatham, the managing member of their jointly owned company, Tsar Energy II, LLC. Although Cheatham was initially required to work exclusively for Tsar II, that exclusivity provision was eliminated after the company had languished with only one investment made in three years. Cheatham continued to bring oil and gas opportunities to BV, and also made his own acquisitions, but the parties made no further investments were made through Tsar II. Cheatham’s investments proved to be far more lucrative than BV’s, which led BV to sue Cheatham for breach of fiduciary duty. The jury rejected those claims, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court held that there was no charge error in asking the jury to consider whether the parties had formed a partnership to invest in “all” deals (as opposed to “any”) that Cheatham had an opportunity to acquire in the Marcellus Shale. The Court held that was a proper instruction because the justice’s review of the evidence and arguments at trial showed that BV had tried the case on an all-or-nothing theory.

BV Energy Partners, LP v. Cheatham, No. 05-14-00373-CV

The Texas Citizens Participation Act is becoming a powerful tool for disposing of certain types of lawsuits at an early stage of litigation, but an opinion from the Dallas Court of Appeals recognizes two important limits to the TCPA’s scope. Travis Coleman sued his former employer, ExxonMobil Pipeline, and two former supervisors for defamation and related claims. Coleman contended that the defendants had lied about his alleged failure to measure the level of fluid in a chemical holding tank, which led to his dismissal. The trial court denied Exxon’s motion to dismiss under the TCPA, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.

The Court of Appeals first relied on the Texas Supreme Court’s recent holding in Lippincott v. Whisenhunt (4/25/15) to reject Coleman’s argument that the TCPA did not apply because the speech was purely private. Nevertheless, the Court held that the allegedly defamatory statements did not involve a “matter of public concern” because their contents related to Coleman’s private job performance, not health, safety, the environment, or Exxon’s economic interests. The fact that the potential consequences of Coleman’s alleged failure to check the tank included health, safety, environmental, and economic concerns was not enough to transform the statements into a matter of public concern. The Court also rejected Exxon’s argument that the TCPA applied on free association grounds, holding that communications made in the context of free association had to involve some sort of public or citizens’ participation to fall under the TCPA.

ExxonMobil Pipeline Co. v. Coleman, No. 05-14-00188-CV

Heritage Auctions held a number of items owned by Movie Poster House, Inc. and one of its owners, William Hughes. Hughes owed Kenneth Mauer over $600,000 that was secured by Hughes’ collectibles, and Mauer filed an application for writ of garnishment against Heritage. While that case was pending, Movie Poster House intervened, seeking an accounting to determine which items were owned by Hughes personally and which were owned by MPH. Because MPH’s consignment agreement contained an arbitration provision, the matter was compelled to arbitration. MPH later sought to amend its statement of claims to add additional causes of action for damages, but the arbitrator denied leave to file on the basis that the filing was untimely. The arbitrator ruled in favor of MPH on the original claims, and the trial court subsequently granted summary judgment for Heritage when MPH sought to re-file its additional claims in court. The Court of Appeals affirmed. Because MPH failed to appeal the arbitration award directly, it could not complain about the arbitrator’s decision to deny leave to amend. And because those additional claims arose out of the same set of facts as the claims that were addressed in arbitration, they were barred by res judicata.

Movie Poster House, Inc. v. Heritage Austions, Inc., No. 05-14-01260-CV

The Dallas Court of Appeals has now joined two other Texas appellate courts in holding that “A post-verdict motion requesting attorney’s fees filed before the entry of a final judgment is a sufficient pleading to support an attorney’s fee award.” The Court also disposed of the appellant’s argument that a $50,000 fee award was unreasonable because it far exceeded the $11,000 in damages found by the jury, holding that the issue was waived by failing to request a reporter’s record of the hearing.

Nisby v. Dentsply Int’l, Inc., No. 05-14-00814-CV

A year before trial, Investment Retrievers filed a business records affidavit and attached business records in a suit to recover on an assigned credit card debt. The trial court rendered judgment over the debtor’s objection that the business records affidavit was inadmissible because it was made by a third party. On appeal, new counsel argued that the judgment was not supported by evidence because the business records affidavit was not included in the clerk’s record. That deficiency was quickly cured through the filing of a supplemental clerk’s record, and the Court of Appeals defendant had failed to preserve other arguments by not objecting at the trial court or by not briefing them on appeal.

Parks v. Investment Retrievers, Inc., No. 05-14-00024-CV

In August 2013, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that “viatical settlements” — basically, interests in bought and resold life insurance policies — were securities within the scope of the Texas Securities Act. Likely because of a conflict between that holding and a previous case out of the Waco Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court granted the petition for review and set the case for oral argument. This morning, the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Dallas court’s opinion, finally confirming that the trial court had erred in granting summary judgment for the defendants. The case was remanded for further proceedings, presumably including trial on the merits.

Life Partners, Inc. v. Arnold, No. 14-0122

A 1999 divorce decree required Molly Brizendine to pay a $14,477 debt the she and her ex-husband owed to Texans Credit Union. In 2013, Texans sued Richard Brizendine for the balance of the outstanding line of credit. The county court at law granted judgment for the ex-husband, but the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed and rendered. Although it was Molly who had continued to take advances on the line of credit long after the divorce was final, Richard was still liable for the debt because he had signed the original contract as a co-borrower. The Court held that it was “well-settled that a court in a divorce action has no power to disturb rights that creditors lawfully hold against the parties.”

Texans Credit Union v. Brizendine, No. 05-13-01422-CV

An insurance coverage dispute highlights a key requirement of the venerable mailbox rule — namely, that it doesn’t apply when the filing party (in this case, both pro se and temporarily incarcerated) does not affix sufficient postage to have his summary judgment response delivered by the postal service. In the absence of a properly filed response, the Court of Appeals held that the trial court had correctly granted the insurer’s traditional and no-evidence motions for summary judgment.

Wilson v. Colonial County Mut. Ins. Co., No. 05-14-00220-CV

Update: We did it again!

In February and again in March, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that appellate courts will not conduct merits-based review of orders granting a new trial following bench trials. In a very short opinion denying mandamus review, the Court has now extended that holding to orders granting new trial following entry of a default judgment. So unless the Texas Supreme Court weighs in, it appears that the only new trial orders subject to mandamus review under In re Columbia Medical Center will be those that follow jury trials.

In re Klair, No, 05-15-00462-CV

The owners of a company that owned and operated three ASI Gymnastics centers attempted to effectuate a business divorce via a Rule 11 agreement calling for the appointment of a panel of appraisers. A dispute ensued over how the appraisers were to do their work, and that led the parties back to the courthouse to sort out the terms and enforceability of the Rule 11. The trial court ruled that the agreement was valid, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. While the plaintiffs argued that the agreement lacked essential terms as to the interest rate and payment period for the buyout, the Court of Appeals held that the agreement itself (represented in a series of email exchanges between the attorneys) stated that those terms were not the “heart of the proposal,” and the rest of the terms were indeed agreed upon. (Notably, the buyout funds were actually tendered as a lump sum, rendering the interest rate and payment terms moot.) The Court also rejected the plaintiffs’ contention that the Rule 11 was unenforceable because it was not manually signed, ruling that they had not timely objected that the electronic signature blocks on the emails were invalid as signatures for a Rule 11 agreement. However, the Court reversed and rendered an award of attorney fees in favor of the defendants, concluding that the dispute was already before the trial court when the defendants filed a declaratory judgment counterclaim that they had validly complied with the Rule 11 agreement.

Crews v. DKASI Corp., No. 05-14-00544-CV

The owner of “$8,074.68 in United States currency, forty ‘8 liner’ machines, three Walmart gift cards, and miscellaneous paperwork” appealed a judgment of civil forfeiture, challenging the admissibility of the search warrant affidavit that led to the property’s seizure. That police officer’s affidavit was “replete with hearsay,” but the Court of Appeals found that to be no impediment to the validity of the affidavit. Citing a string of Court of Criminal Appeals and Dallas Court of Appeals cases, the Court held that in presenting the facts to support a search warrant, police officers are permitted to rely on the observations of other persons. And because the affidavit had already been relied upon as probable cause by the magistrate who issued the search warrant, the burden was already shifted to the owner to show cause why the property should not be forfeited or destroyed. Thus, as the Court of Appeals memorably states it, “the State did not have a burden to show probable cause at the show cause hearing.”

$8,074.68 in United States Currency v. State, No. 05-13-01502-CV

The United Food & Commercial Workers Union sought to collectively bargain on behalf of the employees of the Texoma Area Paratransit Systems, a rural transit district. TAPS sued for a declaratory judgment that, as a government subdivision, it was prohibited from collectively bargaining by Chapter 617 of the Texas Government Code. A Grayson County trial court granted summary judgment for TAPS and (more than a year later) awarded its attorney fees. The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed, rejecting the union’s claim that TAPS’s declaratory judgment action was preempted by federal labor law. Despite 12 years of collective bargaining between TAPS and the union, state law still prohibited collective bargaining with a government entity, and that meant that TAPS was indeed entitled to summary judgment on the issue.

United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 1000 v. Texoma Area Paratransit Sys., Inc., No. 05-12-01556-CV

Banco Popular appealed from an agreed final judgment of garnishment for over $900,000 of its account holder’s money. The same day the court signed that agreed judgment, the bank moved for a new trial on grounds that it was not indebted to the account holder after all. The trial court denied the motion for new trial, and the Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed. The Court first held that Craddock factors did not apply because it was an appeal from an agreed judgment instead of a default. The Court also shut down a pair of creative arguments, holding that trial courts are not required to explain their reasons for denying a new trial, and that they are not required to hold an evidentiary hearing before entering an agreed judgment.

Banco Popular N. Am. v. Am. Fund US Invests. LP, No. 05-14-00368-CV

The Texas Commission on Human Rights Act preempts many employment-related claims in favor of the TCHRA’s own available remedies. In this case, an employee sued her employer, Steak N Shake, for common law assault after her supervisor committed an act of sexual assault. Because the gravamen of the plaintiff’s “unwanted offensive touching” claim was for sexual harassment, the Court of Appeals followed Texas Supreme Court authority in holding that the common law assault claim was preempted by the TCHRA. The Court also rejected the employee’s claim that the claim did not sound in harassment because it involved only a single incident. The Court therefore affirmed summary judgment for the employer.

B.C. v. Steak N Shake Ops., Inc., No 05-14-00649-CV

Is a party seeking to set aside an arbitration award entitled to take discovery from her opponent’s attorneys and the arbitrator in order to establish a claim of evident partiality? The answer from the Dallas Court of Appeals is a partially qualified yes. Dolores Rodas sued her employer, La Madeleine, for personal injuries sustained during her employment. The case was compelled into arbitration, and the arbitrator issued a take-nothing award in favor of La Madeleine. Rodas moved to set aside the result on the basis of the arbitrator’s evident partiality, claiming that he had failed to disclose two subsequent times he had been appointed as arbitrator in cases involving La Madeleine’s law firm. The trial court confirmed the arbitration award, but the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded. Assuming, without deciding, that Texas law requires a party to make some evidentiary showing of grounds to challenge the arbitration result before discovery is permitted, the Court of Appeals held that Rodas had met that threshold and was therefore entitled to take depositions in support of her claim of evident partiality.

Rodas v. La Madeleine of Tex., Inc., No. 05-14-00054-CV

A short opinion appears to stand for the proposition that mandamus will not issue to prevent the deposition of a lawyer for one of the parties in the litigation because the appellate court can only speculate what questions might be asked of the attorney. The opinion relies on a pair of cases from the Houston [1st] and Corpus Christi Courts of Appeals that held the future possibility of questions being asked on privileged topics does not justify the prior restraint of barring the deposition altogether. It should be noted that the witness here was apparently involved in the facts underlying the plaintiff’s claims, and that the district judge’s order did provide at least a broad definition of the proper scope of inquiry (although neither caveat is included in the Court of Appeals’ opinion).

In re Hydroscience, Inc., No. 05-15-00366-CV

By local ordinance, the City of Plano permits the owner of a billboard that pre-existed the city’s current territorial limits to repair the sign if it becomes “dilapidated and deteriorated.” The owners of one such sign near Highway 75 sued the city after their request to repair the sign after the sign and all but one of its five supporting beams were blown over in a storm. The city refused, arguing that the sign was “destroyed,” not dilapidated and deteriorated. The Court of Appeals disagreed, noting that the ordinance did not contain the word “destroyed,” and that its definition of “dilapidated and deteriorated” included broken support members. The Court ruled against the sign owners on their temporary regulatory taking claim, however, citing recent Texas Supreme Court authority that the pendency of a civil-enforcement procedure, by itself, does not give rise to a taking.

CPM Trust v. City of Plano, No. 05-14-00104-CV

Last summer, the Dallas Court of Appeals rendered judgment in favor of television reporter Brett Shipp on a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act. The plaintiff in that case, Dr. Richard Malouf, is back in the Court of Appeals with another pair of defamation cases involving the TCPA. This time, Malouf and his wife sued AOL, Inc. and its reporter for publishing an allegedly defamatory story concerning a backyard water park being built while Malouf was “charged” with millions of dollars in Medicaid fraud. Malouf claimed that was defamatory because he had never been “charged” with fraud in any criminal proceeding.

Because the statements related to matters of public concern — namely, allegations of defrauding taxpayers and the provision of dental services to the public — the TCPA shifted the burden to the Maloufs to establish a prima facie case for each element of the defamation claim by clear and specific evidence. The Court of Appeals held that they had failed to do so. Because the defendants were acting as members of the media, the Maloufs had to prove that the statements were actually false. The Court of Appeals held that the words “charged” and “stolen’ did not improperly suggest criminal charges or activity when Malouf had been sued under civil law for the alleged conduct several times. Therefore, a person of ordinary intelligence would not perceive the article’s claims to be more damaging to Malouf’s reputation merely because the article omitted to distinguish between civil and criminal proceedings. The Court of Appeals reversed and rendered in favor of AOL, affirmed dismissal as to the reporter, and remanded to the trial court for determination of AOL’s attorney fees and expenses.

AOL, Inc. v. Malouf, No. 05-13-01637-CV

The Texas Citizens’ Participation Act continues to be a powerful tool in certain types of commercial cases. In this instance, the publisher of Petroleum News Bakken managed to obtain and affirm a judgment of dismissal and attorney fees in a business disparagement and tortious interference case. The dispute arose out of a newspaper article that stated no records could be found for wells that Breitling Oil & Gas claimed to have drilled in North Dakota. The publisher moved to dismiss under the TCPA, which shifted the burden to the burden to the plaintiff to come forward with prima facie evidence of each element of its claims. Breitling responded with a notice of nonsuit, but that didn’t stop the trial court from moving forward with the hearing and awarding the defendant $88,444.58 in attorney fees and expenses. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the nonsuit did not moot the pending motion to dismiss because the defendant had already made a “pending claim for affirmative relief” through its request for attorney fees and sanctions. The Court also rejected Breitling’s argument that the attorney fees should have been tried to a jury, noting that the record did not show that Breitling ever objected to the trial court making findings on the reasonableness of the fees awarded.

Breitling Oil & Gas Corp. v. Petroleum Newspapers of Alaska, LLC, No. 05-14-00299-CV

The Court of Appeals has affirmed summary judgment for Albert G. Hill, Jr. in one part of the long-running legal battle initiated by his son, Albert G. Hill III. The trial court ordered the receiver for Hill 3 Investments, LLC to wind up the company and distribute its assets to Hill Jr. and Hill III. Among other items, the Court of Appeals rejected Hill III’s argument that his accountant’s declaration had demonstrated a fact dispute over the receiver’s calculation of the company’s capital accounts. No fact issue existed, the Court of Appeals held, because the accountant only noted that he could not verify the receiver’s calculation with the records available to him. That statement gave rise to “no more than a surmise or suspicion that the accounting might be different if additional documents were reviewed.”

Full disclosure: Our firm formerly represented Hill Jr., including in the case that originally resulted in the appointment of the receiver for Hill 3 Investments. We were not involved in the case at issue here, however.

Hill v. Hill, No. 05-13-00732-CV

Two years ago, the Dallas Court of Appeals ruled that PlainsCapital Bank was not entitled to judgment against a borrower because it based its deficiency claim on the price it obtained when the property was sold a year after foreclosure, rather than the fair market value of the property at the time it was foreclosed. Last summer, the Texas Supreme Court granted the bank’s petition for review and set the case for oral argument. This morning, the Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeals was correct in ruling that § 51.003 of the Texas Property Code controlled PlainsCapital’s deficiency claim. However, the Court also ruled that “fair market value” under the deficiency statute does not mean the price that a willing buyer would pay to a willing seller at the time of foreclosure. Because § 51.003(b)(5) permits the trier of fact to consider the forward-looking factor of discounts that may be applied to a future sales price, it was proper for the trial court to base its fair market value finding on the price the bank actually received in its post-foreclosure sale. The Supreme Court remanded to the Court of Appeals for consideration of additional issues.

Justice Boyd (joined by Justice Guzman) dissented, arguing that the majority had improperly cast aside the historical definition of fair market value, and that evidence of any future discounts in the sale price of the property was only relevant to consideration of the fair market value at the time of the foreclosure.

TLDR: To determine FMV at the time of foreclosure, you can look to values received in the future.

PlainsCapital Bank v. Martin (majority)

PlainsCapital Bank v. Martin (dissent)

Just under two years ago, the Court of Appeals reversed summary judgment for Compass Bank because its custodian of records affidavit did not explain how the witness would have personal knowledge to prove up the promissory note. On remand, the trial court granted the bank’s amended motion for summary judgment, and this time that judgment was affirmed. Among other things, the defendants sought to establish a fact issue by pointing to a discrepancy in the amount of damages owed to the bank in the original summary judgment affidavit versus the affidavit in the amended motion. The Court of Appeals disposed of that issue by pointing out that it had already held the original affidavit to be “no evidence,” so the purported conflict was not really a conflict at all. The Court also held that the bank was not required to file the original promissory note, despite a Collin County local rule to that effect, because the local rule conflicted with the Texas Rules of Evidence governing the admissibility of a duplicate. Finally, although the lending instrument contained an illegal homestead warranty provision, the Court held that provision was severable from the remainder of the contract.

Vince Poscente Int’l, Inc. v. Compass Bank, No. 05-14-00165-CV

Less than a month ago, the Court of Appeals held that a Motion for New Bench Trial Is Not Mandamus-able. Now the Court has reiterated that holding where a district judge granted a new new trial after the case had originally been tried to an assigned judge. The Court relied in part on Justice O’Neill’s dissent in In re Columbia Medical Center, which argued that in the situation of a short bench trial, the benefits of a prompt retrial outweigh the detriments of prolonging the case with interlocutory review.

If motions for new bench trial are becoming a thing, we’ll keep an eye on the Supreme Court to see whether it wants to weigh in.

In re Dixon, No. 05-15-00242

A trio of worked-up horse breeders managed to Facebook-rant their way into a colorful defamation lawsuit, which the Dallas Court of Appeals has now permitted to proceed as to one of the two counterclaim defendants. Appellants Jane McCurley Backes and Tracy Johns sued Appellee Karen Misko for tortious interference.  Misko counterclaimed against Johns for libel and against Backes for conspiracy to libel. The opinion quotes extensively from the women’s online postings, the pettiness of which will be no surprise to anyone familiar with the Internet. Misko eventually unfriended Backes and Johns, the latter of whom then posted a thinly-disguised query whether anyone had ever known someone with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. Misko’s daughter had long been a victim of health issues, and other posters saw Johns’ post as an attack on Misko. That post served as the basis for Misko’s libel claim. The trial court denied Johns and Backes’ motions to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act.

The Court of Appeals held that Johns and Backes both met their initial burden of demonstrating that the claims against them were based on their rights to free speech and association, respectively. That shifted the burden to Misko to come forward with clear and specific evidence establishing a prima facie case of each element of her claims. The Court of Appeals held that Misko had indeed met that burden with respect to her libel claim against Johns, but not as to the conspiracy claim against Backes. Because Misko had not come forward with clear and specific evidence of a meeting of the minds between Backes and Johns, the Court rendered judgment dismissing the civil conspiracy claim and remanded the case to the trial court for consideration of an award of attorney fees and costs.

Backes v. Misko, No 05-14-0566-CV

If a court orders a party to be subjected to weekly drug testing, the testee can’t sue the testor over how it is fulfilling its court-appointed duties thanks to the doctrine of derived judicial immunity.

B.W.D. v. Turnage, No. 05-13-01733-CV

The Dallas Court of Appeals has reversed an order appointing a receiver to wind up the affairs of a business equally owned by two siblings who could not agree on selling the cattle ranch they operated. The opinion serves as a useful primer on the statutory criteria for appointment of a receiver. In this instance, the Court of Appeals held that a receiver could not be justified because there was no evidence that the company was under threat of an irreparable injury if the property was not sold.

Spiritas v. Davidoff, No. 05-14-00068-CV

Ehring Enterprises and RD Management were both distributors of a French manufacturer’s skin-care products. Ehring’s exclusive distribution territory was the eastern U.S., while RD distributed product exclusively in the western U.S. After both distributors’ contracts had expired, RD sued Ehring for breach of contract due to sales it had made in RD’s territory. The trial court accepted RD’s argument that it was a third-party beneficiary of the agreement between Ehring and the French manufacturer. The Court of Appeals affirmed that ruling, noting that the sales RD complained of had begun while Ehring was still contractually obligated to stay out of RD’s sales territory.

Ehring Enters., Inc. v. RD Mgmt. Corp., No. 05-13-00711-CV

Since In re Columbia Medical Center, 290 S.W.3d 204 (Tex. 2009), trial courts have been required to specify their reasons for granting a new trial, and the failure to do so has been subject to appellate review by way of mandamus. In a very short opinion arising out of a divorce case, the Dallas Court of Appeals has recognized a notable exception to that rule. When the trial has been to the court instead of a jury, the concerns about transparency in setting aside a jury verdict are not present. Thus, a trial court does not abuse its discretion in granting a new trial without explanation following a bench trial.

In re Foster, No. 05-15-00179-CV

In one of the last opinions of 2014, the Dallas Court of Appeals denied mandamus relief to VERP Investment LLC, which was seeking to overturn a trial court order requiring it to turn over a computer hard drive to a third-party forensic examiner. The Court denied mandamus because VERP had not included transcripts of the trial court’s hearings or a statement that no evidence was taken at them. That left the Court of Appeals unable to determine whether the trial court had abused its discretion in granting the motion to compel. But VERP persisted, filing a second petition that cured the original’s omissions, and that mandamus petition has now been conditionally granted.

On the merits, the Court of Appeals first noted that an order requiring direct access to an electronic device is burdensome because it is intrusive. Due to that intrusiveness, the party seeking direct access must establish via evidence that the opponent is in default of its discovery obligations. In this instance, however, the movant failed to come forward with any evidence, and “[m]ere skepticism or bare allegations” are not enough to warrant direct access to electronic devices. Therefore, the trial court abused its discretion, and the Court of Appeals directed it to vacate the order granting the motion to compel.

In re VERP Investment LLC (VERP II), No. 05-15-00023-CV

Sign Effects Sign Company (the redundancy is sic) obtained a $22,000 default judgment in Ohia against SignWarehouse.com. Six years later, SESC sought to domesticate that judgment in Texas. SignWarehouse argued that the Ohio judgment was invalid because the company was not subject to personal jurisdiction in that state. The trial court and the Dallas Court of Appeals agreed. Relying on Michiana Easy Livin’ Country, Inc. v. Holten, 168 S.W.3d 777 (Tex. 2005), the Court of Appeals held that simply shipping purchased good to another state was insufficient to establish minimum contacts for specific personal jurisdiction, particularly where the parties’ contract specified that venue for any dispute was to be in Grayson County.

Sign Effects Sign Co., LLC v. SignWarehouse.com, No. 05-12-01301-CV

The buyer of a used Inifiniti M45 brought the car to Crest Infiniti and approved nearly $6,000 in maintenance and repair work. But after the repairs were completed, the owner failed to pay for the work or pick up the car. Unsurprisingly, he had also failed to keep up on his payments to the used vehicle company that had financed his purchase, and the seller sent a repo company over to Crest’s lot to recover the car. Crest sued for tortious interference and conversion but lost a bench trial. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that the undisputed evidence established Crest had a possessory mechanic’s lien on the vehicle, that the mechanic’s lien took priority over the seller’s security interest as a matter of law, and that the seller had converted the car when the repo driver removed it from Crest’s lot without permission. The Court therefore remanded the case to the trial court to enter judgment in favor of Crest and to consider an award of attorney fees to it as the prevailing party under section 70.008 of the Property Code.

Crest Infiniti II, LP v. Texas RV Outlet, No. 05-13-01285-CV

Connie Sigel used a website to book an apartment in Paris (the one in France) for a seven-night vacation. During that stay, an intruder with keys to both the apartment and its safe stole most of Sigel’s possessions. Sigel sued the booking agency on multiple contract and tort claims. The trial court denied My Vacation Europe’s special appearance, but the Dallas Court of Appeals reversed and rendered. The Court held that Sigel’s act of accessing MVE’s website and renting an apartment while she was located in Dallas did not constitute a purposeful availment of Texas by MVE, and there was no evidence that MVE specifically targeted Texas residents for its services. The Court of Appeals also held that there could be no specific jurisdiction in Texas because the claims all arose from a burglary that occurred in France, meaning that the relationship between Texas and the operative facts of the litigation was too tenuous to support jurisdiction.

My Vacation Europe, Inc. v. Sigel, No. 05-14-00435-CV

Update: Threepeat. The dream is alive.

A Highland Park property dispute has resulted in a 30-page memorandum opinion affirming the trial court’s summary judgment ruling that the defendants have title to a strip of land adjacent to their home, but also reversing an attorney fee award of $40,670 against the plaintiff, Armstrong DLO Properties. ADLO filed suit, seeking to establish that (among very many other things) a 1949 warranty deed in the defendants’ chain of title was invalid, which would make the frontage of ADLO’s lot approximately 155 feet wide.

During the summary judgment hearing, the trial court revealed that it had sua sponte discovered that ADLO’s owner had successfully sued the estate of his father seeking reformation to the deed, establishing that the frontage was only 140 feet wide. The court orally stated that it would take judicial notice of that judgment, describing it as an issue of “estoppel.” The court subsequently granted summary judgment for the defendants without identifying the grounds for its ruling. The Court of Appeals rejected ADLO’s claim that the district court had improperly relied on matters outside the record in granting the summary judgment, as there was nothing in the written summary judgment order indicating that the court had actually granted summary judgment on the basis of the prior judgment. Because the grounds otherwise presented in the defendants’ motion were sufficient to justify summary judgment, the Court affirmed it. However, the Court reversed as to the award of attorney fees, holding that fees were not recoverable under the Declaratory Judgments Act because the issue was title to the property, not the location of the boundary between properties. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 37.004(c).

Armstrong DLO Props., LLC v. Furniss, No. 05-13-01581-CV

Update: The pressure is now on a for a three-peat next week.

The Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed summary judgment in favor of former state and federal district court judge Joe Kendall and the law firm of Provost & Umphrey. The lawsuit alleged that the plaintiffs had provided Kendall with confidential information for a possible qui tam lawsuit related to the procurement practices of the Dallas and Houston Independent School Districts, and that Kendall and Provost had improperly used that information in filing a successful qui tam lawsuit on behalf of two other clients. Kendall and Provost sought and obtained summary judgment, arguing that no confidential information has been shared, that no duty of loyalty was owed or breached, that there was no evidence of an attorney-client relationship, and that there was no evidence of damages. Among other things, the Court of Appeals held that there was no evidence Kendall had intended to undertake a legal representation of the plaintiffs by meeting with one of them to discuss the “possibility” of a qui tam lawsuit, and that there was no evidence Kendall had actually disclosed any of the plaintiffs’ confidential information in connection with the lawsuit that was actually filed.

Gillis v. Provost & Umphrey Law Firm, LLP, No. 05-13-00892-CV

Marco Calvillo sued the owner of the Kliff Klub — first review on Yelp: “Drinks are very strong”; second review on Yelp: “The drinks are EXTREMELY strong” — for dram shop liability after a patron of the club collided with Calvillo’s truck at 3:30 am, driving the wrong way on I-30. Testing at the hospital more than two hours after the club’s closing time showed the driver still had a .177 BAC. The county court at law granted summary judgment for the club owner, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. The patron’s deposition testimony was that she had never bought a drink at the club that night, but was instead consuming drinks bought for her daughter by various men at the club. Because the driver’s consumption was “twice removed from the provision of alcohol to the men who purchased it and gave it” to the daughter, Calvillo has no evidence that the driver was “served” alcohol within the scope of the Dram Shop Act.

Calvillo v. Frazier, No. 05-14-00013-CV

Update: Woo hoo!  We’re betting it was the on-the-nose Yelp reviews that put it over the top with the judges.

Mandamus, it turns out, will not issue to correct a trial court’s refusal to rule on a motion to dismiss when the movant has not bothered to set a hearing or given notice that the motion would be heard at the pretrial conference. Disappointingly, the Court of Appeals did not reach the novel question of whether Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice & Remedies Code requires a plaintiff to file an expert report when suing a retired physician who owned the cattle that the plaintiff collided with in his vehicle.

In re Archer, No. 05-15-00020-CV

With less than two weeks to go in office, Governor Perry is continuing to fill vacancies across the state. Yesterday, that included appointments to the Second and Third Courts of Appeals, plus the appointment of David Schenck to serve as a Justice of the Fifth Court of Appeals through the 2016 election cycle. Schenck will replace Justice Michael O’Neill, who has served on the Court since first being elected in 1998. Welcome to Justice Schenck, and best wishes to Justice O’Neill in his retirement.

A short opinion denying mandamus in an electronic discovery dispute serves as a reminder of the importance of a hearing transcript in the appellate courts. In this case, VERP Investment lost a motion to compel, but the mandamus record did not include a transcript from either the hearing on the motion or VERP’s subsequent motion for reconsideration. Likewise, the record did not include a statement that no testimony was taken at the hearings, as permitted by TRAP 52.7(a)(2). Those failures left the Court of Appeals unable to determine whether or not VERP’s opponent had made the required evidentiary showing to obtain the electronic discovery. Therefore, VERP could not demonstrate that the trial court had abused its discretion in granting the motion to compel.

In re VERP Investment, LLC, No. 05-14-01403-CV

The Court of Appeals has reversed a trial court’s judgment awarding approximately $46,000 in attorney fees in a denial of coverage dispute. The case was brought by a homebuyer who sued his builders for a number of defects.  The buyer obtained a judgment against the builders in arbitration. The builders had tendered the buyer’s claim to their insurer, Oklahoma Surety Co., but OSC denied coverage for both the defense of the case and ultimate liability. After arbitration, the builders assigned their coverage claim to the buyer, who then sued OSC for the builders’ defense costs and for indemnification under the policy. The trial court ruled that OSC had a duty to the defend the case, but had no duty to indemnify for damages. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that an exclusion for property damage to “your work” applied under the “eight corners” rule, thereby barring both coverage and the duty to defend.

Oklahoma Surety Co. v. Novielo, No. 05-13-01546-CV

The Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court’s award of $3.1 million in attorney fees following the settlement of a shareholder derivative suit against J.C. Penney. The settlement required J.C. Penney to stop guaranteeing the unvested incentive equity awards of certain officers, which the plaintiffs’ evidence showed to be worth $62 million over the four years covered by the settlement. The settlement agreement permitted the plaintiffs to apply for a fee award to “compensate Plaintiff’s Counsel for the results achieved in the Action and the risks of undertaking the prosecution of the Action on a contingent basis.” Although plaintiffs’ evidence showed that the lodestar fee for the case would have been $558,123.50, the Court held that the specific language of the parties’ agreement justified a departure from the lodestar. The Court further held that the $3.1 million award was reasonable because it represented 5% of the monetary value of the settlement, citing a number of shareholder derivative cases that also approved fee awards based on a percentage of the settlement value.

J.C. Penney Co., Inc. v. Ozenne, No. 05-13-01601-CV

For the last six years or so, the sublessor of a property in Irving has been seeking compensation for loss of the leasehold after it was sold to the state in lieu of condemnation for a highway project. In 2011, the Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the lessor’s claim against the state on jurisdictional grounds. The lessor then sued the former owner of the property, claiming breach of the lease agreement by accepting the state’s offer instead of pursuing the matter in a special commissioners’ hearing. In 2013, the Court reversed summary judgment for the owner and remanded to the trial court, holding that the lessor was not collaterally estopped by its loss of the case against the state. But the third time is not the charm, as the Court of Appeals today affirmed summary judgment in favor of the former owner, holding that the lease only requires payment to the lessor in the event of a “condemnation proceeding,” and the private sale in lieu of condemnation was not such a proceeding.

Continental Foods, Inc. v. Rossmore Enters., No. 05-14-00244-CV

Previously: Inverse Condemnation Action Is No Bar to Recovery for Breach of Contract (March 5, 2013)

In 2013, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that “viatical settlements” — basically, interests in life insurance policies purchased and then resold by Life Partners, Inc. — were securities subject to the Texas Securities Act. Given that the opinion expressly rejected a contrary holding from the Waco Court of Appeals, we predicted that this would be a good candidate for review by the Texas Supreme Court. And in fact, that court granted the petition for review today, consolidating the case for oral argument with another Life Partners case out of the Austin Court of Appeals. The argument has been set for January 15, and we will keep you posted when an opinion is issued.

Previously: Viatical Settlements Are Securities (Aug. 29, 2013)

The Court of Appeals has dissolved a temporary injunction that would have prevented a court in Bastrop County from continuing to oversee a homeowner’s insurance appraisal process. James and Patricia Barrentines’ home in Bastrop was damaged by one the wildfires that plagued that area in 2011. Their insurer, Safeco, demanded an appraisal of the loss, and both parties appointed their own appraisers pursuant to the policy. When the two party-appointed appraisers were unable to agree on an umpire, Safeco went to court in Bastrop County to have one appointed. The court-appointed umpire issued an appraisal favorable to the homeowners, but the Bastrop County court then appointed a different umpire. The Barrentines then refiled in Dallas and obtained a temporary injunction forbidding any reappraisal. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed that ruling, holding that it disturbed — rather than preserved — the status quo by interfering with the Bastrop County court’s authority to conduct the appraisal under the insurance contract.

Safeco Lloyds Ins. Co. v. Barrentine, No. 05-13-01011

Chandler Management sued First Specialty Insurance after the insurer denied coverage of a claim for wind and hail damage at a Dallas apartment complex managed by Chandler. The insurer moved to dismiss based on a forum selection clause in the policy that provided for exclusive jurisdiction in New York. The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s dismissal order, without prejudice to refiling in New York. The Court found no error in the trial court’s decision to dismiss the claims against two additional defendants because they had expressly agreed to the insurer’s motion and because the claims against them were also based on the insurance contract. The insurer also established that the policy was procured through a licensed agent, which allowed First Specialty to issue surplus lines insurance in Texas (and therefore allowed it to enforce the contract against its insured). The Court shrugged off a number of claimed failures of the policy under the Insurance Code, holding that noncompliance with those provisions did not affect enforcement of the contract because nothing showed that they were “material and intentional” violations. Finally, the Court rejected Chandler’s arguments that the forum selection clause was overreaching and against public policy.

Chandler Mgmt. Corp. v. First Specialty Ins. Corp., No. 05-13-01044-CV

Legacy Hillcrest Investments is seeking to develop a pair of lots just west of the SMU law School and north of of a single family district. After a series of proposals and counterproposals, Legacy sought a permit for to build a three-story parking garage. The community development staff approved the application, but the Board of Adjustment denied it. That led Legacy to file for a writ of mandamus, which the district court granted. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed. The city’s zoning ordinance provided that only surface parking lots could be located “adjacent to” a single-family district. The Court held that the ordinance prohibited a parking garage because Legacy’s lots were across the street from the single-family district, making them “adjacent” to one another under the plain meaning of the term.

Bd. of Adjustment v. Legacy Hillcrest Invests., LP, No. 05-13-01128-CV

A memorandum opinion provides a short lesson in the nature of equitable remedies. Monterey Mushrooms sued Majestic Realty Co. and McLane Foodservice after one of Monterey’s employees slipped and fell on ice located on their property, causing Monterey to pay the worker through its ERISA injury benefits plan. Monterey sued the defendants for equitable subrogation, unjust enrichment, and money had and received. The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed no-evidence summary judgment for the defendants. Although Monterey had evidence supporting an equitable right of subrogation, that subrogation claim only put it in the shoes of its injured worker, and there was no evidence that he would have a claim against the defendants. The Court distinguished between haveing a right of subrogation and having the ability to recover under that right. Monterey’s unjust enrichment claim failed because there was no evidence that the defendants received any benefit from Monterey’s payment of its injured worker’s benefits. Nor was there a claim for money had and received because there was no evidence teh defendants received any money or benefits belonging to Monterey.

Monterey Mushrooms, Inc. v. Majestic Realty Co., No. 05-13-01015-CV

Attorney Baltasar Cruz sued for libel against the operators of the Burnt Orange Report, which published a statement that Cruz had been “thrown out three times, finally by the police, of an Elizabeth Edwards book signing event in Dallas several years ago.” The defendants moved to dismiss on anti-SLAPP grounds. The trial court granted the motion and awarded the defendants their attorney fees. The Court of Appeals affirmed the dismissal of the case, but reversed on the award of attorney fees.

Cruz raised a remarkable 121 issues for appellate review, taking up 25 pages of non-word count briefing. The Court of Appeals did not find that lack of conciseness persuasive — see Tex. R. App. P. 38.1(f) — nor did it care for the absence of headings, divisions, or groupings in the brief’s 69 pages of argument. The Court also noted that the brief lacked legal authority and failed to identify the evidentiary objections Cruz was seeking to vindicate on appeal. As a result, the Court deemed many of Cruz’s “multifarious” issues to be waived. On the merits of the anti-SLAPP motion, the Court quickly disposed of Cruz’s claim that the statement was not a “matter of public concern” because he was a candidate for judicial office at the time the blog post was published and a candidate’s character is relevant to his qualification for public office. Cruz also could not establish that the statement was published with malice just because the defendants had not been present at the book signing incident, while the defendants averred they had relied on several sources for their account.

However, the Court of Appeals vacated an award of $158,521.50 in attorney fees to one group of defendants because they had not actually “incurred” those fees. Since their attorneys had taken the case pro bono, the clients were not personally responsible for payment of the claimed fees. However, the Court sustained a separate fee award of $31,783.75 to another defendant, holding that there was evidence showing that party was personally liable for those fees.

Cruz v. Van Sickle, No. 05-13000191-CV

Following up on an opinion issued last month that ruled an interlocutory appeal from the denial of a special appearance was frivolous, the Court of Appeals has now awarded the appellee sanctions of $9,650 in attorney fees and $191.25 in expenses as damages from the frivolous appeal. The Court shaved off $2,325 from the appellee’s fee application because some of her attorney’s billing entries either did not relate to the appeal or consisted of block billing that contained a mix of appellate and non-appellate activities.

Estate of Ardyce Deuel-Nash, Deceased (II), No 05-14-00128-CV

An overly-complicated series of transactions led to a dispute over who had valid title to a residential property at 2701 Wickham Court in Plano. The case turned on which of two competing deeds — one filed by the corporation of Quang Dangtran and the second filed by another company that took its deed from his ex-wife, Tuyet Anh Le — was effective. The Court of Appeals affirmed in part and reversed in part. The Court agreed with the trial court’s summary judgment ruling that Dangtran’s deed was not properly acknowledged because it failed to identify the state where the corporate entity was incorporated (see Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 121.008(b)(4)). However, the Court also held that there was a genuine issue of material fact whether the second claimant took the deed from Le with notice of her ex-husband’s claim, which would negate her transferee’s status as a bona fide purchaser. Because Dangtran was in unequivocal possession of the property at the time of the second transaction, and because Dangtran was not a member of Le’s family at that time, summary judgment could not be sustained on the second claimant’s bona fide purchaser defense.

Whoa USA, Inc. v. Regan Props., LLC, No.05-13-01412-CV

The Court of Appeals has granted mandamus relief to direct a Collin County trial court to vacate its order granting a new trial for the plaintiff in a product liability suit. The district court granted the motion based on both factual sufficiency and juror misconduct grounds. The Court of Appeals held that the new trial order could not be sustained on the basis of juror misconduct because the lower court had not conducted an evidentiary hearing — affidavits attached to the motion alone were not sufficient under Rule 327. The Court also concluded that the jury’s verdict for the defense was not contrary to the great weight and preponderance of the evidence, as conflicting testimony from the parties’ design experts adequately supported the jury’s decision that the medical implant at issue was not defective.

In re Zimmer, Inc., No. 05-14-00940-CV

Although medical malpractice usually isn’t this blog’s cup of tea, it is sometimes interesting to see just how broadly the courts will apply the expert report requirement for health care liability claims contained in Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice & Remedies Code. In this case, we learn that a case against a hospital will not be dismissed for failure to file an expert report when the claim is for a slip-and-fall injury. The Court of Appeals distinguished between claims that have an indirect relationship with health care (which require an expert report) and those that are “completely untethered” from health care. Slipping and falling on a wet floor in a hallway, the Court holds, has nothing to do with health care, and so the trial court correctly denied the hospital’s motion to dismiss.

Methodist Hosps. of Dallas v. Searcy, No. 05-14-00375-CV

Under the Texas Tax Code, property taxes are a personal obligation of the person who owns the property on January 1 of each tax year. In this case, the owner purchased her home on February 25 and paid that year’s taxes after closing. She then sought to make the former owner’s lender responsible for the payment of the property taxes because the former owner had been delinquent under the loan. The Court of Appeals rejected that attempt holding that a lienholder is not an owner subject to the property tax obligation. The Court also rejected the buyer’s attempt to make the bank liable to her under a contract theory, noting that her sale agreement was with the seller, and that she had no contract with the bank. Accordingly, the trial court’s summary judgment order was affirmed.

Blume v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., No. 05-13-01429-CV

A special appearance in a probate case has led to the exceedingly rare grant of a motion for sanctions for the filing of a frivolous appeal. In this instance, the appellant managed to make a general appearance in the case before filing the special appearance — a fact that the appellant had failed to even address in response to the appellee’s briefing in the probate court. On top of that, the appellant had failed to preserve his argument on appeal that the special appearance was somehow severable from the motion to show cause in which he entered his general appearance, nor had the appellant objected (and thereby preserved error) when the probate judge overruled the special appearance without holding a separate hearing on it. Although the appellee had not submitted any evidence of her damages to support the award of sanctions, the Court of Appeals granted her leave to file such evidence within ten days of the opinion.

Estate of Ardyce Deuel-Nash, Deceased, No. 05-14-00128-CV

A fire at a hotel in Duncanville left the property owner unable to continue paying on the $3.4 million promissory note. The lender foreclosed and the property was sold for $500,000, leaving a substantial balance on the defendants’ personal guaranty obligations. The bank prevailed on summary judgment, a result that was not helped by the failure of defendants’ counsel to respond to the motion or appear at the hearing. The Court of Appeals affirmed.

The guarantors challenged the trial court’s denial of their motion for new trial. The Court of Appeals analyzed the case as a post-answer default, applying the Craddock factors of whether (1) the failure to answer or appear was a mistake or accident, (2) the defendant had a meritorious defense, and (3) the motion was filed at a time when granting a new trial would not delay or otherwise injure the plaintiff. In this instance, the motion for new trial failed to establish item (3), as the attorney’s affidavit did not address that factor, Neither the motion nor the affidavit  stated that the defendants were ready, willing, or able to go to trial immediately or offer to reimburse the plaintiff for its expenses. The Court also rejected the defendants’ claim of newly-discovered evidence, given that the affidavits failed to establish the proffered evidence (testimony from friends of the defendants) was actually newly discovered or could not have been discovered earlier through the exercise of due diligence.

Kahrobaie v. Wilshire State Bank, No. 05-13-01459-CV

In what appears to be only the third opinion in the state reviewing a motion to dismiss under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 91a, the Dallas Court of Appeals has affirmed a trial court’s order that granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss on the pleadings. Similar to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), Rule 91a allows a party to move to dismiss a cause of action “on the grounds that it has no basis in law or fact,” based solely on the claimant’s pleadings. In this case, the plaintiffs sued the City of Dallas after emergency services failed to respond to a 911 call reporting their son’s drug overdose. The plaintiffs attempted to plead their way around governmental immunity by claiming the City had negligently used or misused the 911 system’s telephone and computer systems. The Court affirmed dismissal of negligence claims that the City had failed to properly respond to the 911 call, but also affirmed the denial of the motion as to claims that the equipment itself had failed or malfunctioned.

City of Dallas v. Sanchez, No. 05-13-01651-CV

When a judgment judgment for breach of contract is entered that includes an award of attorney fees, the defendant is generally not required to supersede that fee award in order to suspend judgment. Instead, the defendant only has to supersede post-judgment interest on the award for the expected duration of the appeal. In this case, Highland Capital Management was awarded $2.8 million in attorney fees, but the defendant only bonded out $287,000. Highland moved to increase the supersedeas bond, arguing that the attorney fees were actually compensatory damages because the parties’ contract contained a clause requiring the defendant to pay Highland’s fees in the event of a breach. The Court of Appeals rejected that argument, essentially concluding that an award of attorney fees under the contract was no different than an award of attorney fees under Chapter 38 of the Civil Practice & Remedies Code (which Highland had also sought in its pleadings and at trial).

Highland Capital Mgmt., L.P. v. Daugherty, No. 05-14-01215-CV

The day before trial, the attorney for the defendant in a car wreck case stipulated to her client’s liability. The next day, the plaintiff moved for sanctions under Rules 13 and 215, based on the allegedly late stipulation. After securing a $44,591 jury verdict, the plaintiff re-urged the sanctions issue, which the trial court granted in the form of a $5,000 award of attorney fees. The Court of Appeals affirmed the jury verdict, but reversed and rendered on the sanctions. The Court held that the sanctions could not be justified for discovery abuse under Rule 215 because that rule requires a party who is aware of possible discovery abuse to obtain a ruling prior to trial. As to Rule 13, that rule requires particularized findings of good cause, which were not included in the trial court’s judgment here.

Hernandez v. Hernandez, No. 05-13-01219-CV

G.C. Buildings hired RGS Contractors to build an apartment complex in Oklahoma, funded by a $7 million loan insured by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The contract provided that the date of final completion was the date that the HUD’s representative signed its final “Trip Report,” which turned out not to be signed until 161 days after the completion of work date called for in the contract. The construction contract contained a liquidated damages clause providing for a daily deduction from the contract price for each day past the construction deadline, but G.C. did not make any such deductions, instead paying the contractor in full. More than two years later, G.C. sued RGS in an attempt to recover either actual or liquidated damages. After a bench trial, the trial court ruled in favor of the contractor, finding that G.C. had not established a proper measure of damages for breach of contract.

G.C. argued that the interest payments it made during the period of the construction delays constituted its damages, but the Court of Appeals rejected that claim because G.C. was obligated to make those payments regardless of when or whether the construction on the apartment complex was completed. As to liquidated damages, the Court held that such damages could not be recovered because G.C. had not followed the procedures of the contract to determine whether a flat $2,101.68 charge or the actual cost of interest, taxes, and other fees should have been deducted from its payments to the contractor. Thus, the trial court’s findings were supported by legally and factually sufficient evidence, and the judgment was affirmed.

G.C. Buildings, Inc. v. RGS Contractors, Inc., No. 05-13-00151-CV

An investor in an office building sued the building’s architect and engineering consulting firm for fraud, negligent misrepresentation, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy. The investor did not file a certificate of merit with the original petition, so the defendants moved to dismiss. The claims against the engineering firm were dismissed without prejudice, and the plaintiff refiled with a new complaint that included a certificate of merit. After consolidating the old and new cases, the trial court granted a motion to dismiss as to all claims against the engineering firm, but only as to the negligent misrepresentation claim for the architects. An interlocutory appeal ensured, and the Court of Appeals ended up siding with the plaintiff. As to the plaintiff’s claim against the engineering firm, the Court held that dismissal without prejudice did not prevent the plaintiff from refiling a new lawsuit — the one under appeal — that included a certificate of merit. As to the claims against the architecture firm, no certificate of merit was required because the plaintiff’s case was based on the allegation that the firm knew of defects in the building due to its occupancy in the building, not in connection with any professional services that the firm had provided. Accordingly, no certificate of merit was necessary, and all of the plaintiff’s claims against the architecture firm were also remanded for further proceedings.

TIC N. Central Dallas 3, LLC v. Envirobusiness, Inc., No. 05-13-01021-CV

In the wake of the Texas Supreme Court’s decision vacating a $125 million arbitration award that had been reinstated by the Dallas Court of Appeals, the latter court has rejected another claim that an arbitration award should be vacated on grounds of evident partiality. A group of homeowners sought to recover against Meritage Homes after discovering that their houses were smaller than had been represented. At the start of the final hearing, the arbitrator disclosed his participation in “one or two” arbitrations with the claimants’ attorneys since the case had begun, but Meritage had no objection to proceeding with the hearing. That changed after the arbitrator found in favor of the homeowners and awarded damages and attorney fees.

In seeking to set aside the arbitration award, Meritage claimed that the arbitrator had failed to disclose that he had really held three arbitrations with the claimants’ attorneys, plus one additional mediation. The trial court confirmed the award over Meritage’s objections, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Although the Court noted that the arbitrator’s disclosure was “vague, at best” as to the number of arbitrations he had conducted with the homeowners’ attorneys, the comment was still “clear as to substance” — namely, that he had arbitrated cases with the attorneys while the case was pending. Because the arbitrator had disclosed that substance, and because Meritage had failed to follow up on the disclosure until after it had already lost the arbitration, the failure to disclose one more arbitration and one mediation would not yield a reasonable impression of the arbitrator’s partiality to an objective observer.

Meritage Homes of Texas LLC v. Ruan, No 05-13-00831-CV

In case you missed it, or if you just hate reading Twitter in real time, Law360 has kindly posted a transcript (twitscript?) of Wednesday afternoon’s discussion on the Texas Supreme Court’s recent term. Please don’t expect too much analysis in 140 characters or less, but it’s a nice way to check in on some big developments you might have missed by not obsessively checking the opinions at 9:05 am every Friday. Thanks very much to Law360 for the invitation to participate. Now back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

At noon on Wednesday, @600Commerce will be participating in a #Law360Chat on Twitter with @Law360 and some excellent attorneys to discuss the 2013-14 Supreme Court of Texas term. Regular Twitter followers will get our comments in their feed, of course, but you can follow the whole event via the hashtag above. Drop on by for plenty of very short takes on some of the more important cases of the term.

For the second time this month, the Court of Appeals has decided that Oncor Electric Delivery Company was not responsible for causing a fire that damaged a plaintiff’s property. In this instance, Schepp’s Dairy alleged that Oncor’s negligence led to a fire starting with a transformer at Schepp’s facility. At trial, three different electrical engineering experts variously testified that the fire was caused on either Schepp’s side or Oncor’s side of the transformer. The jury specifically rejected the conclusions of two of those experts, leaving only one expert for Schepp’s. In a highly fact-specific opinion, the Court of Appeals held that the last expert’s opinion was unreliable. Among other problems, the witness had failed to exclude other possible causes of the fire, and he had only testified as to Oncor’s negligent maintenance of the transformer without opining as to what was the direct cause of the fire. Without that testimony, Schepp’s had no evidence of causation, and the judgment against Schepp’s was therefore reversed.

Oncor Elec. Deliv. Co. LLC v. So. Foods Gp. LLC, No. 05-12-01223-CV

Last December, the Court of Appeals issued an interim opinion vacating a trial court order that almost quadrupled the supersedeas amount to be paid by TierOne Converged Networks during the appeal of a judgment evicting it and its equipment from the water towers of Lavon Water Supply Corp. Now, the Court has reversed and rendered judgment in favor of TierOne on the merits of the forcible detainer case. The Court agreed with TierOne that it had validly exercised its contractual option to renew the lease of the property for an additional five-year term. Because the lease did not require notice of any renewal, TierOne’s continued occupation of the property and payment of the monthly rent following the expiration of the initial term was sufficient to constitute an election to renew.

TierOne Converged Networks v. Lavon Water Supply Corp., No. 05-13-00370-CV

One year ago, the Dallas Court of Appeals held that a homeowner’s negligence claims against the company that installed the home’s plumbing were barred by the economic loss doctrine. Today, the Texas Supreme Court has reversed that ruling in a per curiam opinion. Although the plumber’s liability to the homebuilder was contractual, the negligent performance of a contract that injures a non-party’s person or property is sufficient to state a claim for negligence. The Supreme Court reiterated that the economic loss rule does not permit a party to avoid tort liability to the rest of the world simply by entering into a contract with another person.

Chapman Custom Homes, Inc. v. Dallas Plumbing Co., No. 13-0776

In an opinion that never mentions the name “Ross Perot Jr.” (a.k.a. Hillwood Investment Properties III), the Court of Appeals has affirmed summary judgment in favor of Mark Cuban (a.k.a. Radical Mavericks Management LLC) in a case alleging that Cuban spent too darned much money on payroll for the Mavs. Or, more technically speaking, that the Mavs were spending more money than they were taking in, rendering the team insolvent and requiring the appointment of a receiver. Sports fans and legal observers may recall this case as the one in which Cuban filed a particularly amusing pleading shortly after the Mavs won the 2011 NBA title. In any event, the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court’s ruling that Hillwood had no evidence of insolvency, holding that its expert had failed to consider “third-party contributions to the Mavericks” (a.k.a. Cuban’s personal footing of the bills). The Court also affirmed the trial court’s decision to seal certain business records under Rule 76a, holding that the lower court had not abused its discretion in determining that the financial and collective bargaining documents were sufficiently sensitive to justify their sealing.

Hillwood Investment Props. III, Ltd. v. Radical Mavericks Mgmt., LLC, No. 05-11-01470-CV

An architectural firm subcontracted with Pavecon Commercial Concrete to pour the foundation for a wedding facility in Carrollton. The architect failed to pay the last of Pavecon’s invoices, prompting Pavecon to sue the architect and the owner of the facility. The defendants counterclaimed for breach of contract and negligence, alleging that the concrete services had been performed improperly. Pavecon moved for summary judgment on the counterclaims. The trial court granted the motion and the Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the architect had failed to submit admissible evidence of any specific pecuniary loss and that the negligence claims were barred by the economic loss doctrine. Justice Moseley dissented in part, arguing that the trial court should not have sustained Pavecon’s objection that the defendants’ summary judgment affidavit was conclusory in averring their damages.

Trebuchet Siege Corp. v. Pavecon Commercial Concrete Ltd., No. 05-12-00945-CV

Trebuchet Siege Corp. v. Pavecon Commercial Concrete Ltd. (dissent)

Hurricane Ike damaged property owned by Optimum Deerbrook LLC. Optimum’s lender, ViewPoint Bank, was a loss payee on Optimum’s property insurance policy with Allied Property & Casualty. Allied paid the claim, issuing checks jointly to Optimum and ViewPoint, but Optimum endorsed and deposited the checks in its own account. As a result, ViewPoint never received any of the insurance funds. ViewPoint sued Allied for breach of the insurance contract and a claim under article 3 of the UCC. The trial court granted summary judgment for the insurer, but the Court of Appeals reversed. Citing the Texas Supreme Court’s recent decision in McAllen Hospitals, LP v. State Farm, the Court held that the insurer had not fulfilled its payment obligation by delivering the checks only to the insured, and that delivery to both payees is required because neither of them, acting alone, could enforce or negotiate the instrument. The Court also held that summary judgment should have been granted in favor of the bank on its UCC claim because the drawer of a check is not discharged from its obligation when the check is issued to nonalternative copayees and is paid without one of their necessary endorsements. However, the Court held that the bank’s attorney fees affidavit was not sufficiently detailed to support summary judgment and remanded the case for further consideration of an award of attorney fees.

ViewPoint Bank v. Allied Prop. & Cas. Ins. Co., No. 05-12-01370-CV

A builder sued the prospective buyers of a townhome for breach of contract and fraud after they backed out of the sale before closing. The Court of Appeals affirmed a jury verdict for the buyers. The seller’s first issue on appeal was simply that “the evidence demonstrates [buyers] committed fraud against [seller],” a complaint that was too broad and generic to preserve any specific error. The Court also affirmed an award of $9,675 in attorney fees to the buyers under a prevailing-party clause of the contract, holding that the seller’s briefing about that award failed to discuss the evidence concerning the fees and did not explain how the cited case law should be applied to the jury’s finding.

Davenport Meadows LP v. Dobrushkin, No. 05-12-01471-CV

The company operating the Golf Club at Castle Hills agreed to grant lifetime memberships to a number of golfers, who filed suit in order to vindicate those contracts after the course was foreclosed on and sold to defendant CAPX Realty. Although the plaintiffs continued to golf for free for the next four years, that was not enough to raise a genuine issue of material fact on the golfers’ theory that CAPX had ratified their contracts. Ratification is a theory by which a principal can affirm a contract entered into by an agent.  But CAPX was not a party to the contract, and nobody was acting as CAPX’s agent in entering into the contract. Therefore, CAPX could not ratify the lifetime memberships, and summary judgment was appropriately granted.

Averett v. CAPX Realty LLC, No. 05-13-00885-CV

The Court of Appeals has issued a lengthy opinion affirming the denial of a special appearance. The appeal arises out of an apparently contentious case involving claims and counterclaims for breach of contract, fraud, and defamation. Defendant Sebastian Lombardo — an Italian citizen who lives in Belgium and works in France — challenged personal jurisdiction by invoking the fiduciary shield doctrine, which protects officers of corporations from being personally haled into court in Texas due to their contacts as representatives of the corporation. Unfortunately for Lombardo, his argument in the trial court had presented that issue as a matter of general personal jurisdiction, and the trial court had found him to be subject to specific personal jurisdiction. Having failed to present the fiduciary shield doctrine as a bar to the exercise of specific personal jurisdiction, the issue was also waived on appeal. The opinion goes on to affirm the legal and factual sufficiency of the evidence supporting the trial court’s findings of jurisdictional facts, as well as its application of the law to those facts, and therefore affirmed denial of the special appearance.

Lombardo v. Bhattacharyya, No. 05-13-01583-CV

The developer of a condominium project in Fort Worth sued the general contractor it had hired to construct a rooftop pool and deck. Inevitably, the general filed third party claims and cross-claims against various other participants, including engineers and subcontractors, seemingly all of whom filed claims, cross-claims, and counterclaims against everyone else. Two of the defendants moved to dismiss some of third party claims on the basis that the claimants had not complied with the certificate of merit requirement for suits against licensed architects, engineers, and surveyors.  See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 152.002. Applying recent authority from the Texas Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals held that a certificate of merit is only required to initiate suit, not for defendants or third-party defendants who assert claims for relief within a lawsuit. However, the Court also ordered the dismissal of the plaintiffs’ fifth amended petition as to one of the two defendants on the basis that they had failed to attach a certificate of merit to the amended petition before the deadline.

Hydrotech Engineering, Inc. v. OMP Dev., LLC, No. 05-13-00713-CV

Providence Bank sued for a deficiency judgment after the bank foreclosed on one of the borrower’s properties. The parties agreed to settle that claim, and so the bank filed a notice of nonsuit by mail. But on the same day the bank mailed in the nonsuit, the borrower filed brand new counterclaims against the bank on other properties. So the question became whether the bank’s nonsuit terminated the entire case before the filing of the counterclaims. The Court of Appeals answered that question in the negative.  Although TCRP 5 deems a document to be filed on the date it is mailed, that rule only applies to documents that have to be filed by a particular deadline. By contrast, a nonsuit under Rule 162 can be filed at any time before the close of the plaintiff’s evidence. Accordingly, the nonsuit was not deemed filed at the time of mailing, and by the time it arrived at the courthouse for filing, the borrower’s counterclaims were already part of the lawsuit and could move forward as part of the case.

FP Asset Group, LP v. Providence Bank, No. 05-12-01728-CV

Len Rao filed suit against his former employer, David Weekley Homes. Weekley moved to abate the lawsuit and initiated an arbitration proceeding with the AAA. The trial court denied the motion to compel arbitration, and the Court of Appeals — after first granting an emergency motion to stay the proceedings — ultimately affirmed the denial of arbitration. After the case moved back to the trial court, however, Rao added new claims against the AAA, which responded with a plea to the jurisdiction based on the doctrine of arbitral immunity. The trial court granted the plea, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Arbitral immunity, the Court held, extends not only to arbitrators themselves, but also to the association that administers their proceedings.

Rao v. Am. Arbitration Ass’n., No. 05-13-00462-CV

In a follow-up from an opinion issued a few months ago, the Court of Appeals has affirmed summary judgment in favor of the financiers of a development project in Fort Worth. For essentially the same reason that the buyer could not recover against the architect who had referred the deal in the first place — namely, that the paperwork for the sale fully disclosed the fact that the property was partially situated on a 100-year floodplain. Because the architect’s summary judgment motion had conclusively negated any possibility that he was personally responsible for any fraudulent misrepresentations, the buyer could not recover for fraud against the finance he was allegedly representing in the transaction.

Collective Asset Partners, LLC v. Pana, No. 05-13-00552-CV

The Texas Supreme Court today affirmed the Dallas Court of Appeals’ judgment in a wrongful death/asbestos case, which had vacated an $11.6 million plaintiff’s verdict. The majority opinion disagreed with the Court of Appeals’ holding that the plaintiff had to prove that the decedent would not have contracted mesothelioma but for his exposure to the defendant’s own product. Nevertheless, applying the “substantial factor” test for causation, the majority held that the plaintiff had still failed to provide legally sufficient evidence that the defendant’s product had caused the victim’s illness.

Bostic v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. (majority)

Bostic v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. (Guzman concurrence)

Bostic v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. (Lehrmann dissent)

Last month, we noted an opinion that teased, but did not answer, an interesting question: Does Chapter 74 of the Civil Practice & Remedies Code require a plaintiff to produce an expert report for a breach of contract claim arising out of the provision of medical services? The Court of Appeals has now issued an amended opinion in that same case that addresses that very issue. While still holding that the defendant/counterclaimant had failed to preserve error by failing to make a proffer of the excluded evidence — namely, that his mother had been placed in a straitjacket despite the assisted-living facility’s contract stating that it was a “restraint-free community” — the revised opinion adds a new section on the expert report issue. The Court now concludes that even if the evidentiary issue had not been waived, the trial court still properly excluded that evidence because it was still a healthcare liability counterclaim that required the defendant to produce a Chapter 74 expert report. Since the defendant failed to do so, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence of the resident being placed in restraints.

Ferguson v. Plaza Health Servs. at Edgemere (amended opinion), No. 05-12-01399-CV

We depart from our usual fare of commercial litigation to spotlight a candidate for inclusion in future family law textbooks (or at least study materials for the Texas Bar Exam). To establish a common law or “informal” marriage, the claimant has to prove (1) the couple agreed to be married, (2) after that agreement they lived together in Texas as husband and wife, and (3) they represented to others that they were married. After Joseph Marek died intestate, Deborah Anderson intervened in the probate of his estate, claiming she and Marek had an informal marriage. The probate court sided with Anderson. Marek’s sister appealed, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence that the couple had an agreement to be married and represented to others that they were married.

The Court of Appeals conducted a detailed review of the evidence and affirmed the trial court’s judgment. The proof that Marek and Anderson had held themselves out as married was conflicting, but the trial court was entitled to resolve that conflicting evidence in favor of Anderson. The seemingly closer issue was whether Marek and Aderson actually had an agreement to be married. Anderson testified that agreement came when she returned to Marek’s house (colorfully, from an illegal gambling parlor) after a period of separation. Anderson testified that Marek asked her “Are you here for good, Babe?” and she responded “Yes.” The Court held that this testimony alone was not specific enough to establish anything more than an agreement to cohabitate. Nevertheless, it was still circumstantial evidence that, combined with all the evidence that the couple had actually lived their lives as husband and wife (including six years of “Married, Filing Jointly” tax returns), served to establish an agreement to be married. Thus, it appears that evidence of a couple acting as if they are married, and representing themselves to be married, can also establish the required element of an actual agreement to be married.

In re Estate of Marek, No. 05-13-01008-CV

After a dispute arose between the owner of an apartment complex and the contractor hired to renovate it, the owner sent the contractor checks totaling more than $8,000 with a letter stating that it was “full and final payment” for all amounts owed. The contractor cashed the check, but subsequently filed a lien and sought to recover an additional $14,000 in unpaid invoices. The trial court granted judgment for the defendant, and the Court of Appeals affirmed. Although the contractor’s owner testified that he had not “knowingly and affirmatively” agree to an accord and satisfaction, the trial judge was entitled to disregard that evidence as not believable. Luckily, however, the apartment owner conceded that the $14,000 awarded on its own counterclaim was erroneous, and so the Court of Appeals vacated and rendered that portion of the judgment, with a remand for further consideration of the attendant attorney fees.

Contemporary Contractors v. Centerpoint Apt. Ltd., No. 05-13-00614-CV

A trial court that dismisses a lawsuit after a motion made under the Texas Citizens Participation Act “shall award to the moving party . . . reasonable attorney’s fees . . . incurred in defending against the legal action as justice and equity may require.” Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 27.009(a)(1). In this case, the trial court signed its order on March 6 granting the defendant’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit, then followed it up on April 14 with an order awarding defendant $15,616 in attorney fees and sanctioning the plaintiff another $15,000. The plaintiff claimed that the April 14 award was a nullity because the March 6 order was a final judgment. The Court of Appeals disagreed, first order did not purport to dispose of the defendant’s claim for fees and costs, and both the court and the parties recognized that there had not been a final judgment because they continued to litigate the additional issues. The Court of Appeals went on to rule on several other issues, concluding among other things that the plaintiff had waived any complaint about the trial court’s failure to timely hold a hearing on the motion to dismiss by failing to object in the trial court; that the statements attributed to the defendant were not capable of being defamatory; and that the plaintiff had not pointed to any evidence of damages to support its tortious interference claim. The judgment was therefore affirmed.

American Heritage Capital LP v. Gonzalez, No. 05-12-0892-CV

After a string of missed, overpaid, refunded, and improperly credited property tax payments and a cancelled foreclosure, homeowners Peter and Natalya Shin sued Chase Home Finance under the Texas Debt Collections Practices Act. Chase moved for a no-evidence summary judgment, which the trial court granted. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the plaintiffs had failed to come forward with evidence showing a violation of the Act. Among other things, the Court held that the homeowners had not shown Chase had attempted to collect unauthorized fees, because the mortgage papers provided that Chase could indeed collect the subject fees if the borrowers did not pay their property taxes on time. Since there was no question that the plaintiffs had been late in paying their property taxes, Chase’s attempt to set up and collect the funds for an escrow account was authorized under the parties’ agreement.

Shin v. Chase Home Finance LLC, No. 05-12-01634-CV

Last November, the Texas Supreme Court reversed and remanded for further consideration in a case where the Dallas Court of Appeals had concluded that the plaintiff had sufficiently pleaded a waiver of sovereign immunity through the use of tangible property. The Supreme Court held that the plaintiff had not alleged a “use” of property for a whiteboard that fell on his head, because Dallas Metrocare had only made the board available for use by patients. On remand, the Court of Appeals had to consider the alternative question of whether the plaintiff’s claims alleged injury through a “condition” of property. The Court concluded that he had pleaded such a claim, based on the allegation that the whiteboard was in an unsafe condition because it was not properly secured. The case was therefore remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.

Dallas Metrocare Servs. v. Juarez, No. 05-11-01144-CV

Following up on last week’s decision that basically eliminated minority shareholder oppression claims (or more precisely, shareholder oppression remedies) in Texas, the state Supreme Court has reversed and remanded another such case that passed through the Dallas Court of Appeals a couple years ago. In Cardiac Perfusion Services, Inc. v. Hughes, the Court of Appeals had affirmed the trial court’s order of a $300,000 “fair value” buyout of the oppressed shareholder’s stock, holding that the majority’s oppressive conduct justified a departure from the “book value” buyout price provided for by the parties’ shareholder agreement. With court-ordered buyouts no longer a viable remedy for shareholder oppression claims, the Supreme Court vacated that portion of the judgment, but remanded the case to the trial court in the interests of justice in order to afford the minority shareholder an opportunity to try to establish liability under one or more of the alternative claims discussed last week in Ritchie v. Rupe.

Cardiac Perfusion Servs. Inc. v. Hughes, No. 13-0014

Television reporter Brett Shipp was sued for defamation by Dr. Richard Malouf, founder of the All Smiles Dental Center. Shipp broadcast a story on allegations of Medicaid fraud involving Malouf, and closed by reporting that Malouf “has yet to comment on the allegations but filed for bankruptcy and is in the process of divesting his once impressive empire.” Malouf alleged that statement was defamatory because it was All Smiles Dental Center that filed for bankruptcy, not Malouf personally. Shipp filed a plea to the jurisdiction and a motion to dismiss under the Texas Citizens Participation Act. The trial court denied both the plea and the motion, and Shipp took the matters up on interlocutory review.

The Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the plea to the jurisdiction, but reversed and rendered based on on the TCPA. The plea to the jurisdiction claimed that the county court at law was without jurisdiction because it would deny Shipp the right to a 12-person jury. The Court quickly disposed of that issue, citing its own case law establishing that the size of the available jury does not negate subject matter jurisdiction that has otherwise been properly conferred on a court. As to the TCPA, the Court held that Shipp had met his initial burden of showing that the lawsuit arose out of his exercise of the right to free speech because the subject matter of his report as a whole — not just the statement about the bankruptcy filing — was made in connection with a matter of public concern. That shifted the burden to Malouf to come forward with a prima facie case, based on “clear and specific evidence,” for each element of his defamation claim. Malouf argued that a false accusation of personal bankruptcy was defamation per se, which would have given rise to a presumption of damages. The Court of Appeals disagreed, holding that it was not defamation per se because it did not “touch Malouf in a way that is harmful to one engaged in the profession of dentistry.” Without any other clear and specific evidence of damages, the Court held that the motion to dismiss under the TCPA should have been granted.

Shipp v. Malouf, No. 05-13-01080-CV

This morning’s decision by the Texas Supreme Court in Ritchie v. Rupe raises some pretty substantial questions about the continuing viability of claims for minority shareholder oppression in Texas. By way of background, the decision arises out of a dispute over a family-owned investment business, with the wife and heir of one of the deceased owners claiming that the other owners were hostile to her and told her that she would “never get any money in this family.” Wanting out of the company, she sought to sell her shares to an outside investor, but the majority shareholders refused to meet with any prospective purchasers, make the company’s records available, or otherwise assist in a sale. The jury found that conduct to be oppressive, and the trial court ordered a buyout of the minority’s shares for $7.3 million. The Dallas Court of Appeals affirmed the oppression ruling, albeit with a remand for further consideration of the valuation of the plaintiff’s shares.

In reversing that decision, Justice Boyd’s majority opinion for the Supreme Court first analyzed the case under the receivership statute, currently codified at section 11.404 of the Texas Business Organizations Code. That statute permits a court to appoint a receiver when “the acts of the directors or those in control of the corporation are illegal, oppressive or fraudulent . . .” Construing and rejecting previous cases that have considered the meaning of “oppressive” conduct, the court today holds that directors or managers engage in oppressive conduct “when they abuse their authority over the corporation with the intent to harm the interests of one or more of the shareholders, in a manner that does not comport with the honest exercise of their business judgment, and by doing so they create a serious risk of harm to the corporation” (emphasis added). Since shareholder oppression cases have typically focused on whether the minority shareholder has been improperly harmed, the additional question of whether the majority is putting the corporation itself at risk of harm appears to be a significant shift in the law. Because the directors here had legitimate business reasons for refusing to meet with prospective buyers, there was no “serious risk of harm to the corporation,” and therefore no oppression.

Perhaps even more significant are the Supreme Court’s other two holdings in the case. Besides the refusal to cooperate with the sale of her shares, the plaintiff also alleged that the defendants had engaged in other types of oppressive conduct. The court declined to consider those other acts, however, based on its determination that the receivership statute does not authorize the remedy of a buyout of the minority’s shares. Thus, a court may order the appointment of a receiver if the corporation itself is threatened with harm, but it cannot order a buyout just because the minority shareholder is being harmed by the majority’s business decisions. Finally, because the receivership statute does not permit a buyout, the court turned to the question of whether there is a common law cause of action (and remedy) for shareholder oppression, and concluded that there is not. Although the court recognized there Texas law should protect minority shareholders from “freeze-out” or “squeeze out” tactics of the majority, it held that there are already sufficient protections with remedies such as derivative lawsuits, shareholder agreements, and common law claims such as breach of fiduciary duty and accounting. Accordingly, there was no need to recognize a common law claim for minority shareholder oppression, and it therefore could not serve as the basis to order an equitable buyout of the minority’s shares. And in fact, the Supreme Court remanded the case for further consideration of the plaintiff’s breach of fiduciary duty claim.

Going forward, the majority opinion today imposes significant restraints on shareholder oppression claims, refocusing the claim on harm suffered by the company rather than its minority shareholders and eliminating the ability of courts to order buyouts, whether at fair market value or any other price. Lawyers and clients should also make careful note of the majority’s emphasis on the utility of shareholder agreements in providing for the kinds of contractual remedies that can provide in advance for buyout provisions and other remedies that would moot the need for any shareholder oppression claim. But as Justice Guzman’s dissent correctly notes, this is a decision that puts minority shareholders in a much weakened position when their personal interests clash with the decisions of the majority.

In what will certainly be seen as a landmark decision for Texas business law, the Supreme Court has issued its opinion today reversing the Dallas Court of Appeals in the case of Ritchie v. Rupe. As we noted a while back, the Court of Appeals had affirmed the trial court’s ruling that a minority shareholder was entitled to “fair market value” for her shares, including “discounts for lack of marketability and for the [s]tock’s minority position.” Today, the Supreme Court holds that it was not oppressive conduct for the majority shareholders to refuse to meet with prospective purchasers of the company, that the Business Organizations Code does not authorize courts to order a corporation to buy out a minority shareholder’s stock, and that there is no common-law cause of action for minority shareholder oppression. 

Ricthie v. Rupe (majority, by Justice Boyd)

Ritchie v. Rupe (dissent, By Justice Guzman)