Morris ex rel. for Their Minor Children K. Morris v. Unified Hous. Found. Inc.
| Decision Date | 21 August 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 05-13-01425-CV,05-13-01425-CV |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
| Parties | ALBERT MORRIS AND TILDA MORRIS, FOR AND ON BEHALF OF THEMSELVES AND FOR THEIR MINOR CHILDREN K. MORRIS AND A. MORRIS, STEPHANIE MORRIS, AND ADAORAH MORRIS, Appellants v. UNIFIED HOUSING FOUNDATION INC., UNIFIED HOUSING OF INWOOD, LLC D/B/A INWOOD ON THE PARK APTS., SUNCHASE AMERICAN, LTD., CITY OF DALLAS, AND LUI AKWURUOHA, Appellees |
On Appeal from the 14th Judicial District Court Dallas County, Texas
Before Justices Francis, Lang-Miers, and Whitehill
Opinion by Justice Whitehill
Appellants were the plaintiffs in this suit for personal injuries, "malicious" contract breaches arising from an apartment lease, and federal civil rights violations. Their claims arose from an incident in which appellant Albert Morris was allegedly assaulted and injured without justification by an off-duty Parkland Hospital police officer and by City of Dallas police officers in the parking lot of an apartment complex where his daughter lived.
Defendant-appellee City of Dallas obtained dismissal of some of appellants' claims against it based on a plea to the jurisdiction and dismissal of the rest of the claims on summary judgment.1
Defendants-appellees Unified Housing Foundation, Inc., Unified Housing of Inwood, LLC d/b/a Inwood on the Park Apts., and Sunchase American, Ltd., the landlord group and employer of the off duty Parkland Hospital police officer involved in this case, (collectively "Unified") obtained dismissal of all of appellants' claims against them on summary judgment.
Appellee Lui Akwuruoha was appellants' attorney for part of the proceedings below. Appellants appeal from the trial court's awarding Akwuruoha an attorney's fee of $3,600 based on quantum meruit.
Appellants raise four issues on appeal: (1) Did the trial court err by dismissing appellants' claims against the City and Unified; (2) Did the trial court err by denying appellants' request for sanctions against Unified; (3) Was the evidence sufficient to support the award of attorney's fees; and (4) Did the trial court abuse its discretion by granting Akwuruoha's request for attorney's fees?
For the reasons discussed below, we reverse the trial court's judgment in part, render in part, affirm in part, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
We draw the following allegations from appellants' live pleading and from the statement of facts in appellants' brief:2 Appellant Albert Morris was in the Inwood on the Park apartment complex parking lot at about 3:00 a.m. on December 13, 2009. He was there to visit his daughter, appellant Stephanie Morris, who lived in the complex. Albert was sitting in his cartalking on the telephone.3 Security guard Dennis W. Thomas, an off-duty Parkland Hospital police officer, approached Albert with a flashlight and asked him for his apartment number. Albert was apprehensive because Thomas was dressed entirely in black and had a black hood over his head and face.
Albert ended his phone call and called Stephanie, who then came out to the parking lot. Although Stephanie asked Thomas what was wrong and identified Albert as her father, Thomas ignored her. Instead, he called the City for police back-up. Albert got out of the car, and he and Stephanie began walking to her apartment. When they reached the hallway in front of her unit, about twenty uniformed police officers "jumped on" them with Thomas's assistance. The officers pushed Albert down and stood on his back, injuring him. They also placed "heavily tightened handcuffs" on Albert and "wedged him" into their motor vehicle.
At some point the police officers realized they had made a mistake and called an ambulance. But instead of taking Albert to receive treatment for his physical injuries, the police routed the ambulance to the psychiatric ward of Parkland Hospital. The police also created false reports involving "mental delirium" to cover up their earlier mistake. Albert was eventually released from Parkland at about 11:30 a.m. that same day.
Shortly after the incident, Unified sent Stephanie a notice to vacate, asserting that she had violated the lease. Unified then filed a suit for eviction, which eventually settled.
Appellants ultimately asserted against Unified (i) a variety of state tort claims, (ii) federal statutory civil rights claims (appellants added these federal claims after Unified filed its summary judgment motion), and (iii) breach of contract/lease claims based on the incident givingrise to this case and Unified's subsequent efforts to evict Stephanie. The trial court entered a summary judgment dismissing all of appellants' claims against Unified. Appellants' first issue, in part, challenges the trial court's summary judgment. Their second issue challenges the denial of their sanctions request against Unified.
Unified's summary judgment motion sought the dismissal of all of appellants' tort claims based on limitations. Unified's limitations arguments posited that all of appellants' tort claims (except the federal claims, which had not yet been asserted) were barred by a one- or two-year statute of limitations. Unified's motion argued that appellants filed suit more than one year after the claims accrued, thus barring the defamation claim which has a one-year limitations period, and further argued that the claims with a two-year statute were time-barred because although appellants filed suit within the limitations period, they failed to exercise continued diligence in effecting service.4
In response to Unified's limitations arguments, appellants asserted that (i) they exercised sufficient diligence in serving Unified; (ii) limitations was tolled for all appellants based on Albert's unsound mind; (iii) limitations was tolled as to the children based on their being minors; and (iv) limitations had not expired as to their defamation claims because there was a continuing publication of the defamatory statements.
Unified also sought dismissal of all appellants' breach of contract claims based on the lease, except as to Stephanie, because there was no contract between them and Unified to be breached. As to Stephanie, Unified sought dismissal of her breach of contract and breach of warranty claims because it conclusively established its right to terminate the lease and because she had no damages from the alleged breach.
As to the breach of contract claims, appellants argued that Stephanie was a contracting party with Unified and that there were fact issues regarding whether Unified properly invoked lease provisions authorizing it to terminate the lease under circumstances that Unified alleged that the incident gave rise to.
For the reasons explained below, we conclude that (i) the trial court did not err by granting summary judgment dismissing all of appellants' state law claims; (ii) the trial court erred by dismissing appellants' federal civil rights claims because Unified's motion did not address those claims; and (iii) appellants did not adequately brief their appeal of the summary judgment dismissing their breach of contract claims. Accordingly we sustain appellants' first issue in part and overrule it in part.
On December 8, 2011—five days before the incident's second anniversary—all of the appellants except for Adaorah Morris5 filed this suit against the City, Unified, and many other defendants. Appellants, however, did not request service of process at that time. Albert is an attorney, and he represented both himself and his family members.
The trial court eventually gave notice that it intended to dismiss the case on March 19, 2012 for want of prosecution. Appellants, again excepting Adaorah, filed an amended petition on March 16.
On March 26, the trial court sent a new notice of intent to dismiss for want of prosecution. On that same date, appellants filed a request for service of process on some of the defendants.
After being served, Unified answered and later filed a motion for summary judgment based primarily on the statute of limitations. Several days later, appellants (including Adaorah) filed a second amended petition. Appellants also filed a summary judgment response and later filed a third amended petition, which remained their live pleading until final judgment. The third amended petition asserted claims against Unified for state law torts, breach of lease and breach of implied warranties, and violations of appellants' federal civil rights.
The trial court granted Unified's summary judgment motion and dismissed all claims against Unified without stating its reasons. Unified subsequently filed a motion to sever. Appellants followed with a "motion to set aside" the summary judgment order.
Almost a year went by, during which appellee Akwuruoha began to appear as appellants' counsel.
Appellants thereafter filed a "supplement" to their motion to set aside Unified's summary judgment order. And Unified then filed a Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 13 and Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 10 "motion/counterclaim" for sanctions against appellants and Akwuruoha. A few days later, the trial court granted Unified's motion for severance, severing out all the claims against Unified, but not severing Unified's "motion/counterclaim."6
Appellants timely filed a notice of appeal from Unified's summary judgment. They also filed a response to the sanctions motion in which they argued that the sanctions motion was itself brought in bad faith and requested an award of attorneys' fees as a sanction. The trial court never expressly ruled on Unified's or appellants' sanctions requests. Appellants amended their notice of appeal to specify that they were also appealing the denial by operation of law of their request for sanctions.
The trial court later rendered a final judgment. Because the final judgment...
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