Ford v. Exxon Mobil Chemical Co.

• Decision Date: 31 August 2007
• Docket Number: No. 06-0293.,06-0293.
• Citation: 235 S.W.3d 615
• Parties: Robert F. FORD, Jr., Petitioner v. EXXON MOBIL CHEMICAL COMPANY, A Division of ExxonMobil Corporation, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

235 S.W.3d 615

Robert F. FORD, Jr., Petitioner v. EXXON MOBIL CHEMICAL COMPANY, A Division of ExxonMobil Corporation, Respondent.

No. 06-0293.

Supreme Court of Texas.

August 31, 2007.

Rehearing Denied November 2, 2007.

Anthony G. Brocato, Law Offices of Anthony G. Brocato, Robert Keith Wade, Wade & Gilmore, Beaumont, TX, for Petitioner.

George Emerson Bean, Chambers, Templeton, Cashiola & Thomas, LLP, Beaumont, TX, David M. Gunn, Connie H. Pfeiffer, Erin Hilary Huber, Beck, Redden & Secrest, L.L.P., Houston, TX, for Respondent.

PER CURIAM.

This suit involves one pipeline, two litigants, three tracts, and four deeds. In the fourth and final deed, Robert Ford granted a pipeline easement across three tracts of land, but now claims he did so based on misrepresentations about the three previous deeds. The court of appeals unanimously held his fraud claim barred by limitations, but in a divided opinion ordered the easement cancelled and the pipeline removed anyway because no statute of limitations applied to an equitable action to quiet title. 187 S.W.3d 154, 159-60 (Tex.App.-Beaumont 2006). As we agree with the dissenting justice that limitations bars all Ford's claims, we affirm in part and reverse in part.

In the summer of 1998, Mobil Chemical Company (predecessor of petitioner ExxonMobil Chemical Company) bought a 12-inch-wide easement for a propylene pipeline. The recorded deed included a map showing the pipeline crossing three tracts of land, but the text of the easement described the servient estate by referring to another deed that described only one tract. In an amended easement signed three months later granting temporary access for operations, the original easement was described as crossing all three tracts. Two days after the amendment, Ford bought all three tracts by special warranty deed expressly subject to Mobil's easements. Four months later, Ford signed another amendment (in return for $20,000) relocating the pipeline's route across all three of his tracts. Ford claims he signed this amendment only because Mobil falsely represented that the original easement covered all three tracts, when in fact it covered only one.

Five years after signing the last amendment, Ford sued for real estate fraud. See TEX. BUS. & COM.CODE § 27.01. The trial court granted summary judgment for Ford, awarding him $36,167 and ordering the pipeline removed. The court of appeals reversed the damage award (holding limitations barred Ford's fraud claim) but affirmed the removal order (holding quiet title actions have no statute of limitations). Both sides petitioned for review.

As a preliminary matter, we disagree with ExxonMobil that the judgment here is interlocutory because it did not expressly dispose of Ford's statutory claim for expert witness fees. See id. § 27.01(e) (providing fees for attorneys, expert witnesses, and copies of depositions). There is no presumption of finality for summary judgment orders, and the order here contains no unequivocal statement of finality. See Lehmann v. Har-Con Corp., 39 S.W.3d 191, 205-06 (Tex.2001). But "[a] judgment that actually disposes of all parties and all claims is final, regardless of its language." In re Burlington Coat Factory Warehouse of McAllen, Inc., 167 S.W.3d 827, 830 (Tex.2005). Ford moved for summary judgment on the entire case, and the trial court granted it as to all claims and all parties. While the summary judgment would have been interlocutory had the motions not addressed all Ford's fee claims, McNally v. Guevara, 52 S.W.3d 195, 196 (Tex.2001), the motion here did and the trial court's monetary award can only be attributed to those fees.

ExxonMobil argues that the undisputed summary judgment evidence established attorney's fees of $36,167 and expert fees of $1,500,¹ and that the trial court's award of precisely $36,167 means it adjudicated only the former. But the award was a lump sum that did not specify what it was for; that it may have been incorrect if it did not include both fees does not mean it was interlocutory. We have never held that an order disposing of all claims can be final only if it itemizes each and every element of damages pleaded. Similarly, a summary judgment order clearly disposing of a suit is final even if it does not break down that ruling as to each element of duty, breach, and causation. See, e.g., M.O. Dental Lab v. Rape, 139 S.W.3d 671, 674-75 (Tex.2004) (finding summary judgment order final that stated only that "[n]o dangerous condition existed" and defendant "committed no acts of negligence"). Accordingly, we hold this order granting a lump sum for all Ford's claims is final.

On the merits, Ford argues the court of appeals erred in holding his fraud claim barred by limitations. The parties agree this claim had to be brought within four years of when the fraud should have been discovered by reasonable diligence. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM.CODE § 16.004(a)(4); Little v. Smith, 943 S.W.2d 414, 420-21 (Tex.1997); Sherman v. Sipper, 137 Tex. 85, 152 S.W.2d 319, 320-21 (1941). While not all public records establish an irrebuttable presumption of notice, the recorded instruments in a grantee's chain of title generally do. HECI Exploration Co. v. Neel, 982 S.W.2d 881, 886-87 (Tex.1998); Westland Oil Dev. Corp. v. Gulf Oil Corp., 637 S.W.2d 903, 908 (Tex.1982); Sherman, 152 S.W.2d at 321; Kuhlman v. Baker, 50 Tex. 630, 637 (Tex.1879); see also TEX PROP.CODE § 13.002. The instruments here necessarily do so, as Ford's fraud claim stems entirely from a discrepancy among them concerning the servient estate, a discrepancy he admits learning by simply reading them. And Ford cannot avoid constructive notice by claiming a fiduciary relationship here, as he neither pleaded nor proved such a relationship in the trial court. See Via Net v. TIG Ins. Co., 211 S.W.3d 310, 313 (Tex.2006) (per curiam). We affirm the court of appeals' judgment barring Ford's fraud claim.

But we agree with ExxonMobil that the court of appeals erred in holding Ford's demand for removal of the pipeline was not barred too. The court stated two reasons limitations did not apply: (1) ExxonMobil's motion did not assert limitations as to Ford's quiet title claim, and (2) an action to quiet title is never time-barred. 187 S.W.3d at 159-60.

As to the first, ExxonMobil did not have to assert limitations separately as to quiet title because Ford's pleadings, construed liberally, did not plead it as an independent cause of action. Quiet title is not mentioned among the facts or claims in Ford's petition, appearing instead only in an introductory section and the prayer as part of a list of items (like a mandatory injunction and attorney's fees) that are merely forms of relief.² Having asserted limitations against Ford's fraud claim, ExxonMobil did not have to assert limitations against each...