Res Judicata and Contract Damages

Claim preclusion barred a second lawsuit for unpaid rent, when the record showed as to an earlier lawsuit that:

When appellants filed the previous lawsuit, the lease entitled them, in part, to three categories of damages: (1) rent unpaid before termination, (2) rent unpaid after the lease’s termination and before appellants receive judgment therefor, “and” (3) “unpaid rent called for under the Lease for the balance of the term[.]” Moreover, appellants cite judicial opinions that provide a landlord may sue for future damages upon breach of lease. Consequently, appellants “could have” alleged in the previous lawsuit a claim seeking judgment for all three categories of damages authorized by the lease.  Instead, appellants alleged and recovered in the previous lawsuit only part of their claim by seeking solely unpaid rent that had accrued prior to the previous judgment.

(citations omitted). The judgment in the earlier case had a clause that said: “This Judgment does not preclude Plaintiffs from seeking additional damages as they accrue after December 2020.” That language didn’t change the Fifth Court’s ruling, however:

[A]ppellants “terminated” the lease August 5, 2020, and the lease expressly authorized appellants to seek damages they seek in this lawsuit at the time they terminated the lease. Consequently, appellants’ claim for the damages they claim in this lawsuit accrued—came into existence as a legally enforceable claim—on August 5, 2020, when they terminated the lease and before they filed the previous lawsuit. Therefore, we conclude the recital in the previous judgment concerning claims that “accrue after December 2020” cannot apply to appellants’ claim for damages for breach of lease in this lawsuit, which accrued August 5, 2020, prior to the previous lawsuit and judgment.

SJF Forest Lane LLC v. Phan, No. 05-22-00905-CV (May 31, 2024) (citation omitted).