In its weekly orders, the Texas Supreme Court issued seven opinions and granted review in one case. Click here to view the weekly order list (4/20/12). Click here to access the new opinions.
Here are the seven new opinions:
1. Bison Building Materials, Ltd. v. Aldridge -- In this arbitration case, the trial court partially vacated an award, leaving the award incomplete. The Supreme Court held that there was no appellate jurisdiction to review the trial court's interlocutory order.
2. Safeshred, Inc. v. Martinez -- The Supreme Court held that punitive damages are awardable in a Sabine Pilot wrongful-discharge case because the claim sounds in tort. But here, there was no evidence of malice (that the employer consciously ignored the risk of additional serious harm to the employee who refused to perform the illegal act).
3. Commission for Lawyer Discipline v. Schaefer -- Even though an evidentiary panel that disbarred an attorney was improperly constituted, the court affirmed the disbarment because the attorney (who did not attend the hearing) did not preserve error by timely objecting to the composition of the panel.
4. Ashford Partners, Ltd. v. ECO Resources, Inc. -- The plaintiff in this construction-defect case sought the diminished value of its leasehold interest in the building. The court held that the correct measure was the repair cost, of which there was no evidencce.
5. The Mansions in the Forest, L.P. v. Montgomery County -- The court held that the lack of a jurat in a summary-judgment affidavit is not a substantive defect, and therefore, the opponent must object to the affidavit in order to preserve error.
6. Cruz v. Andrews Restoration, Inc. -- This is a DTPA dispute between a remediation contractor, a homeowner, and the homeowner's insurer. The court held that the homeowner was not a prevailing consumer against the contractor because the jury awarded no damages and there was no finding of reliance. The court also held that under the "restoration" remedy in the DTPA, the homeowner could not recover the amount that he and the insurer paid to the contractor. Finally, the insurer's oral promise to pay the contractor was enforceable under the "main purpose" exception to the statute of frauds,because the main purpose of the insurer's oral promise was to benefit the insurer, not to pay for the homeowner's debt to the contractor.
7. Salinas v. Salinas -- The court held that it was error to base a judgment on the damages awarded by the jury for three defamatory statements, when the jury had found that the plaintiff suffered no damages for one of the three statements.
The case in which the court granted review is Gonzales v. Southwest Olshan Foundation Repair Co. The issues are (1) whether a common-law action exists for breach of an implied warranty to perform repairs in a good-and-workmanlike manner, and (2) whether evidence supported findings on the discovery rule and fraudulent concealment.
-- Scott Stolley, Thompson & Knight
Comments