Justia Contracts Opinion Summaries

This suit was filed by a daughter against an organ donation charity when she discovered that the charity - contrary to an earlier representation to her - would allegedly profit from harvesting her deceased mother's tissues. The charity requested a defense from its insurer, and the insurer denied a defense. The insurer's subsequent suit against the charity resulted in two certified questions from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court held (1) the insurance policy provision for coverage of "personal injury" does not include coverage for mental anguish, unrelated to physical damage to or disease of the daughter's body; and (2) the insurance policy provision for coverage of "property damages," does not include coverage for the underlying plaintiff's loss of use of her deceased mother's tissues, organs, bones, and body parts.

This case arose when the owner of a gas-fired electric power generating plant sued the owner of the pipeline that supplied fuel to the plant for negligence in allowing interruptions in service and in delivering gas below contractual quality standards. The court held that Wolf Hollow could not assert its delivery and quality claims against Enterprise in an action for negligence, and though it could assert its quality claim against Enterprise through an assignment from El Paso, the damages it sought would be barred by the consequential damages waivers. Those waivers also precluded Wolf Hollow's recovery of plant damages from El Paso, but El Paso had not established that they precluded recovery of replacement-power damages. Because Wolf Hollow's replacement-power claim survived, the trial court's declaratory judgment was not moot. Accordingly, the judgment of the court of appeals was reversed, and the case was remanded to the court of appeals for further proceedings.

In this suit for an alleged breach of a deposit agreement, the court reviewed the court of appeals' judgment in favor of an estate administrator, as well as the estate administrator's cross-petition concerning attorney's fees. When a party failed to preserve error in the trial court or waived an argument on appeal, an appellate court could not consider the unpreserved or waived issue. Because many of the arguments raised by the parties invoked issues of error preservation or waiver, the court declined to grant either party the relief it sought.

This case involved a mediated settlement agreement (MSA) from a divorce. At issue was whether the court of appeals erred in setting aside the underlying MSA, which the trial court purported to follow in its divorce decree. The court did not agree with the court of appeals that the MSA unambiguously required wife's substitution as a limited partner nor did it agree that the MSA should be set aside merely because the parties interpret their agreement differently. The court agreed with the decision to remand, however, because the MSA's ambiguity must be resolved before an agreed judgment could be rendered. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

This case arose when Norma Sandoval and her sister, Nora Martinez, jointly filed suit against SCI alleging fraud, deceptive trade practices, and other tort claims arising from their respective interment rights and services contracts for family burial plots at Mont Meta Memorial Park. Martinez's contract allowed the court to appoint an arbitrator, while Sandoval's contract required the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to appoint the arbitrator if the parties could not reach a mutual agreement. The trial judge severed the cases and then appointed an arbitrator for Martinez's case. Over the objection of SCI, the trial court also appointed the same arbitrator to arbitrate Sandoval's case. At issue on appeal was whether SCI allowed a lapse or mechanical breakdown in the contractual process for selection of an arbitrator, thereby validating the trial court's intervention to appoint the arbitrator. The court held that the trial court abused its discretion by appointing an arbitrator instead of following the agreed-upon method of selection outlined in the contract. As a matter of law, the two-month delay in the selection of an arbitrator in this case, by itself, did not establish a lapse or failure of the parties to avail themselves of the contractual selection method. Accordingly, without hearing oral argument, the court conditionally granted SCI's petition for writ of mandamus and directed the trial court to vacate its prior order appointing David Calvillo as arbitrator.

This mandamus proceeding arose from an arbitration agreement governed by the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA), 9 U.S.C. 1 et seq. The parties entered into a contract for interment rights and services. The contract obligated the parties to arbitrate this dispute over the care and maintenance of the cemetery. The arbitration agreement provided that an arbitrator would either be selected by mutual agreement of the parties or appointed by the American Arbitration Association (AAA). The parties failed to agree to an arbitrator and the trial court appointed an arbitrator without allowing a reasonable opportunity to procure an appointment by AAA. The court concluded that the trial court abused its discretion and conditionally granted the petition for writ of mandamus.

This case concerned an arbitration provision that allowed each party to appoint one arbitrator to a panel, subject to certain requirements. At issue was whether Americo wavied its objection to the removal of the arbitrator it selected. The underlying dispute concerned the financing mechanism for Americo's purchase of several insurance companies from Robert Myer. Pursuant to the financing agreement, Americo and Myer submitted their dispute to arbitration under American Arbitration Association (AAA) rules. The arbitrators found in favor of Myer, and Americo filed a motion to vacate the award. The trial court granted the motion, holding that Americo was entitled to any arbitrator that met the requirements set forth in the financing agreement and that the arbitrator removed by the AAA met those requirements. The court of appeals reversed, holding that Americo had waived these arguments by not presenting them to the AAA. Because the record demonstrated otherwise, the court rejected the court of appeals' judgment and remanded the case to that court for further proceedings.

This matter arose out of a dispute over whether the City of Dallas paid its firefighters and police officers in accord with a 1979 ordinance adopted pursuant to a voter-approved referendum. Claiming the City had not properly paid them, some firefighters and police officers brought a class action asserting breach of contract claims and seeking a declaratory judgment. For the reasons set out in City of Dallas v. Albert, the court concluded that: (1) the ordinance's adoption by means of referendum did not result in the City's loss of immunity from suit; (2) the City had immunity from suit as to the declaratory judgment action; (3) by non-suiting its counterclaim the City did not reinstate immunity from suit as to the Officers' claims that were pending against the City when it non-suited the counterclaim; and (4) the case must be remanded for the trial court to consider whether the Legislature waived the City's immunity by amending the Local Government Code.

This case involved a property dispute between the parties over easements and right-of-ways on plaintiffs' property. Defendant contended that the tort claims against it were barred by the two-year statute of limitations and that the declaratory judgment against it was unwarranted. The court held that plaintiffs' common-law tort claims were barred by the applicable two-year statute of limitations and the estoppel effect of the alleged fraudulent concealment ended in December 2002. Because plaintiffs did not file suit until more than two years after this date, their claims were time-barred. The court agreed that claims for declaratory judgment were moot because defendant had removed its cable lines from plaintiffs' properties prior to trial. Accordingly, the court granted defendant's petition for review and reversed the court of appeals' judgment.

This case arose when plaintiff filed suit against its former employee and the employee's new employer for breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty, claiming, among other things, that the new employer had solicited and accepted business from clients and prospects of plaintiff who were serviced by the new employer or where the new employer supervised the solicitation of activities related to the client or potential client. At issue on appeal was whether a covenant not to compete signed by a valued employee in consideration for stock options, designed to give the employee a greater stake in the company's performance, was unenforceable as a matter of law because the stock options did not give rise to an interest in restraining competition. The court held that, under the terms of the Covenants Not to Compete Act, Tex. Bus. & Com. Code ch. 15, the consideration for the noncompete agreement was reasonably related to the company's interest in protecting its goodwill, a business interest the Act recognized as worthy of protection. The noncompete was thus not enforceable on that basis. The court reversed the court of appeals' judgment and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings.