Informal Fiduciary Non-Duty

The supreme court rejected a claim of an informal fiduciary duty arising from an accountant-client / business relationship in Pitts v. Rivas:

This evidence comes nowhere close to creating a fiduciary relationship under our precedents. There is no evidence that a special relationship of trust and confidence preceded the parties’ business agreement. Rivas’s subjective trust in the Accountants is no evidence of a fiduciary relationship. Providing discounted commercial services— like home-building—to a business associate does not impose fiduciary duties on the recipient. And the evidence offered to show a special personal relationship between Rivas and the Accountants amounts only to business conversations, a few dinners, and a close friendship between their sons.

A four-Justice concurrence, written by Justice Huddle, questioned the validity of the entire concept of an informal fiduciary duty:

In these contexts, heightened legal duties are justified because the fiduciary is empowered—if not to direct, at least to impact—the rights and affairs of others. But the same is not true in the context of so-called “informal” fiduciary relationships. The construct is flawed because the so-called “informal” fiduciary wields no legal authority to direct another’s affairs that could justify a corresponding heightened fiduciary duty. The Court’s refusal to find that an informal fiduciary duty arose in any case in almost fifty years, despite the theory’s frequent invocation, proves it is time to disavow the notion that “certain informal relationships may give rise to a fiduciary duty.”

No. 23-0427 (Tex. Feb. 21, 2025).