Conditions Precedent Cannot Precede Final Agreement
October 17, 2014In this breach of contract claim, the trial court granted summary judgment on the grounds that the plaintiff had not satisfied the conditions precedent contained in the agreement. The employment agreement at issue was to hire the plaintiff as President and CEO of the Dallas Housing Authority, but the agreement contained a condition that provided the agreement remained “nonbinding unless signed by the Chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the [DHA] and approved by the Board of Commissioners.” The Court of Appeals rejected the plaintiff’s argument that a factual issue precluded summary judgment because the Board of Commissions told him, prior to executing the agreement, that they had already approved it. The Court of Appeals, however, rejected this argument, and affirmed the trial court’s holding because “if the conditions stated in the letter agreement were satisfied before the agreement was presented to [the plaintiff], there would be no need to include such language in the agreement.”
