Ford Motor Co. v. Castillo
| Decision Date | 03 April 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 06-0875.,06-0875. |
| Parties | FORD MOTOR COMPANY, Petitioner, v. Ezequiel CASTILLO, et al., Respondents. |
| Court | Texas Supreme Court |
Craig A. Morgan, Attorney at Law, Michael W. Eady, Ronald D. Wamsted, Juan Alcala, Thompson, Coe, Cousins & Irons, L.L.P., Virginia K. Hoelscher, Brown McCarroll, L.L.P., Austin, TX, Eduardo R. Rodriguez, Jaime A. Saenz, Rodriguez, Colvin Chaney & Saenz, L.L.P., Brownsville, TX, Warren E. Platt, Gerald F. Giordano, Snell & Wilmer, L.L.P., Tucson, AZ, for Petitioner.
Juan A. Gonzalez, Ricardo Garza Benavides, Romero, Gonzalez & Benavides, LLP, McAllen, TX, Roger W. Hughes, Adams & Graham, L.L.P., Michael T. Kiesel, Harlingen, TX, Mark A. Cantu, Law Office of Mark A. Cantu, McAllen, TX, Ernesto Gamez Jr., Law Offices of Ernesto Gamez, Jr., Brownsville, TX, for Respondents.
Ford Motor Company and Ezequiel Castillo, the plaintiff in a products liability action, settled while the jury was deliberating. The settlement occurred after the presiding juror sent a note to the judge asking the maximum amount that could be awarded. Based on later discussions with jurors, Ford suspected that outside influence may have been brought to bear on the presiding juror. After Ford sought, but was refused, permission to obtain discovery on the outside influence question, it withdrew its consent to the settlement. Castillo sought summary judgment against Ford for breach of the settlement agreement. Ford's response renewed its request for discovery, but the trial court rendered summary judgment for Castillo on the breach of settlement agreement claim. We hold that the trial court erred by refusing to allow discovery on Castillo's action for breach of contract, including whether there was any outside influence on the jury. We reverse the court of appeals' judgment and remand the case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
Ezequiel Castillo and other occupants of Castillo's 2001 Ford Explorer (collectively, "Castillo") sued Ford in a products liability action arising from an accident. The jury charge contained two liability questions: was there a design defect in the roof strength and was there a design defect in the vehicle's handling or stability. The jury began deliberating on a Friday, broke for the weekend, then continued deliberating on the following Monday. Deliberations were recessed on Tuesday because a member of the presiding juror's family became ill. When the jury resumed deliberations on Wednesday morning, the presiding juror sent a note to the court that asked, "What is the maximum amount that can be awarded?" The parties promptly settled.
The judge released the jurors and advised them that they could discuss the case with the attorneys and parties. The presiding juror left immediately, but other jurors stayed and voluntarily talked to Ford. The jurors told Ford that they had decided the first liability question (roof strength) in Ford's favor and were deliberating on the second liability question when the presiding juror sent the note. On the second liability question, eight jurors had voted in Ford's favor, two were undecided, and two had voted in Castillo's favor. Ford learned that some of the jurors were unaware of the presiding juror's note and that she sent the note over the objection of other jurors.
Ford filed a Motion to Delay Settlement in which it requested "it be allowed to take discovery, or that the Court independently undertake discovery, on the issue of outside influence in the drafting of this note." The motion was supported by four jurors' affidavits, which described the course of the jury deliberations and the behavior of the presiding juror. At the hearing, Ford's attorney reiterated the discovery request:
[I]t is to me something that should be of concern to the Court if there was any outside influence, and it may be that nothing will show up about it at all, but there's only one way to find out and that's to have either the Court do its own investigation and or the Court allow us to bring the jurors in and have a hearing in front of the Court and or to depose them and then come back to the Court with our findings and make a determination as to where we go from there.
The trial court denied Ford's Motion to Delay Settlement. Although the judge encouraged Ford's counsel to conduct its own investigation concerning the matter, he refused to "disturb the jury" absent specific evidence of misconduct.
Castillo filed a motion to enforce the settlement agreement. At the hearing on the motion, Ford's attorney stated that Ford was willing to proceed with the settlement and asked for two weeks to finalize the details. The trial court granted Ford's request for additional time and extended the payment date to November 5.
On November 2, Ford filed a motion asking the court to reconsider its order directing Ford to pay the settlement. In its motion, Ford stated that it had withdrawn its consent to the settlement. Ford urged that because it had withdrawn its consent to the entry of an agreed judgment, Castillo's only remedy would be to plead and sue on a breach of contract claim. Ford also asked the court to set aside the Rule 11 settlement agreement and grant a new trial, or in the alternative, to grant a mistrial based on juror misconduct. Attached to Ford's motion were transcripts of interviews with ten jurors that had been conducted by private investigators.1 Ford asserted that the settlement agreement should be set aside under the theory of mutual mistake because both parties acted under the mistaken belief that the presiding juror sent the note on behalf of the jury and that the jury had reached the issue of damages. The trial court denied both of Ford's motions and struck the juror interview transcripts on the grounds that they were unsworn and hearsay. The court found no showing of juror misconduct, mutual mistake, or other grounds to rescind the settlement agreement.
Ford did not fund the settlement, so Castillo filed a motion for summary judgment for breach of contract. Ford responded and urged that before moving for summary judgment, Castillo must first plead a claim for breach of contract and then proceed through the traditional course of litigation on that claim. Ford asserted that "[g]ranting summary judgment at this juncture, without allowing Ford an opportunity to conduct discovery, assert defenses, or have contested fact issues tried by a finder-of-fact will deny Ford all its rights as a litigant." Ford urged that it was entitled to conduct discovery to "determine the motivation of the presiding juror's actions and any outside influences that possibly swayed her." In its response, Ford referenced the four affidavits it had filed with its motion to delay the settlement agreement and argued that the affidavits raised fact issues on Ford's potential affirmative defenses. Castillo objected to the four affidavits on the grounds that they were impermissible under Texas Rule of Evidence 606 and Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 327(b) because they contained testimony on matters that occurred during jury deliberations and portions of them constituted hearsay. The trial court sustained Castillo's objections, ordered the affidavits stricken, and granted Castillo's motion for summary judgment. Ford appealed.
The court of appeals affirmed. 200 S.W.3d 217. The court held that Ford waived any error regarding both the trial court's denial of its motion to delay and the discovery request in its response to Castillo's summary judgment motion. Id. at 227, 230. The appeals court also concluded that even if Ford had not waived error, any error would be harmless because Ford ultimately conducted its own investigation and gathered virtually all the evidence it sought to discover and failed to identify any evidence it would have uncovered through discovery procedures. Id. at 230-31. Ford disagrees with both holdings.
First, Ford asserts that the court of appeals erred by holding that Ford waived error as to its discovery requests. Next, Ford urges that the trial court erred in denying it the right to conduct discovery because Castillo's claim for breach of the settlement agreement is the same as any other claim for breach of contract and is subject to the same procedures, including discovery procedures, that apply to any other breach of contract claim. We agree with Ford.
We review a trial court's actions denying discovery for an abuse of discretion. See TransAmerican Natural Gas Corp. v. Powell, 811 S.W.2d 913, 917 (Tex. 1991). A trial court abuses its discretion when it reaches a decision so arbitrary and unreasonable as to amount to a clear and prejudicial error of law. Joe v. Two Thirty Nine Joint Venture, 145 S.W.3d 150, 161 (Tex.2004).
The court of appeals held that Ford failed to preserve error regarding the discovery requests it made in both its (1) motion to delay the settlement, and (2) response to Castillo's motion for summary judgment. 200 S.W.3d at 227, 230. As for Ford's request in the motion to delay settlement, the court of appeals determined that the trial court did not actually deny the requested discovery because it encouraged Ford to conduct its own informal investigation, which Ford did. Id. at 229. We conclude, however, that Ford's presentation and the trial court's response were sufficient to preserve error. The trial court clearly understood Ford's request and just as clearly refused to grant it: the court told Ford that it refused to disturb the jurors and offered Ford nothing more than encouragement in conducting an informal investigation. See TEX.R.APP. P. 33.1(a). Although Ford interviewed most of the jurors, there is a significant difference between interviewing witnesses and taking sworn testimony from them as is allowed in discovery. One...
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