Nasr v. Owobu
| Decision Date | 25 August 2022 |
| Docket Number | 01-20-00631-CV |
| Parties | SAID NASR, Appellant v. FIDELIS OWOBU AND OMOBA INVESTMENTS, LLC, Appellees |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
On Appeal from the County Civil Court at Law No. 2 Harris County, Texas Trial Court Case No. 1153024
Panel consists of Chief Justice Radack and Justices Countiss and Farris.
Appellees Fidelis Owobu and Omoba Investments, LLC sued appellant Said Nasr for breach of contract after they allegedly paid Nasr more than $15,000 for parts and labor to repair a vehicle but Nasr did not complete the repairs or refund the deposit. Owobu and Omoba Investments moved for summary judgment on their claim, and the trial court granted the motion. The court awarded Owobu and Omoba Investments $15,904 in actual damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, and $2,000 in attorney's fees.
In five issues on appeal, Nasr argues that the trial court (1) erred in granting summary judgment because Owobu and Omoba Investments did not establish their breach of contract claim as a matter of law and Nasr presented evidence raising a fact issue; (2) erred in granting summary judgment in favor of Omoba Investments because it had neither standing nor capacity to sue; (3) erred in awarding attorney's fees absent pleading and proof of presentment of the claim; (4) abused its discretion by failing to allow Nasr additional time to respond to the summary judgment motion and by denying Nasr's motion for new trial; and (5) violated Nasr's due process rights by expeditiously disposing of the case without allowing time to complete discovery and in disregard of the restrictions placed on practitioners by the COVID-19 pandemic. We affirm.
Fidelis Owobu owns Omoba Investments, LLC. Owobu and his company purchase luxury vehicles in Houston, export them, and sell them in Nigeria. One of Owobu's vehicles was a 2013 Rolls Royce Ghost that needed repairs.
Said Nasr is a mechanic who conducts business under the name Precision General. In 2017, Owobu brought the Ghost to Nasr for repairs. According to Owobu, his company paid Nasr $10,904 for parts and he paid $5,000 for labor in advance of the repairs. Nasr did not, however, repair the vehicle. He returned the car to Owobu, but he did not refund the amounts that had been paid.
Owobu and Omoba Investments filed suit against Nasr for breach of contract on March 9, 2020. They alleged that they had paid Nasr for repairs to the vehicle, but Nasr did not make the repairs and he did not return the money they had advanced. In their original petition, they alleged that all conditions precedent to suit had occurred. They also specifically alleged that they gave notice of their claim to Nasr more than thirty days before filing suit, but Nasr failed to make any payment, thus entitling Owobu and Omoba Investments to attorney's fees under Civil Practice and Remedies Code Chapter 38.
On April 6, 2020, Nasr answered and generally denied the allegations in Owobu's petition. This answer was not verified.
Owobu and Omoba Investments moved for traditional summary judgment on their breach of contract claim on June 4, 2020, less than three months after they filed their original petition. As summary judgment evidence, they attached records concerning the vehicle, including a price quote for parts; a work order two checks from Omoba Investments to Nasr totaling $10,904 for parts; a check from Owobu to Nasr for $5,000 as a partial payment for labor; and a tow truck slip from when the car was towed from Precision General to Owobu's residence. They also attached a declaration from their counsel, in which counsel declared that he had spent ten hours on the case and charged a total of $2,000. Counsel further declared that a total of $15,000 in appellate-level attorney's fees would be reasonable and necessary.
The summary judgment evidence also included a transcript of testimony that Nasr gave in October 2019 in a federal bankruptcy proceeding involving Owobu. Nasr was not a party to this proceeding, and he was not represented by counsel when he testified. In this proceeding, Nasr testified that he performed some work on the Ghost and obtained the needed parts from the dealership. After Owobu had already taken possession of the car again, Nasr proposed that Owobu bring the car back and allow Nasr to install the parts, but Owobu was out of the country at the time. Nasr ultimately returned the parts to the dealership. When asked whether he still had the money that Owobu paid him for the parts, Nasr replied, Nasr later stated, "I'm not saying that he's not entitled to this money, you know, that's not what we're here about." He agreed that Owobu was entitled to a refund, but he did not know how much he had spent on labor.
Nasr filed a response to the summary judgment motion and requested additional time before submission of the motion. Nasr noted that the case had been on file for less than four months, the parties had been ordered to mediation but that had not yet occurred, and discovery was still outstanding. Nasr requested an additional sixty days before a hearing on the motion so he could have the benefit of Owobu's answers to written discovery. Nasr did not file an affidavit supporting his request for additional time.
Regarding the merits of the summary judgment motion, Nasr argued that Owobu did not meet his summary judgment burden to establish his breach of contract claim as a matter of law. He pointed out that Owobu did not submit any banking records showing payments made to Nasr; instead, Owobu relied only on "front copies of unnegotiated handwritten checks." Nasr did not challenge Omoba Investments' capacity to bring suit.
As summary judgment evidence, Nasr submitted two affidavits: one executed in October 2018, in connection with the federal bankruptcy proceeding, and one executed in June 2020, after Owobu moved for summary judgment.[1] In his first affidavit, Nasr agreed that Owobu brought him a car in need of repairs and that, after Nasr provided a quote, Owobu authorized repairs. He averred that "[t]here was a great deal of work to be done requiring additional advance payments from Mr. [Owobu] for parts as work progressed." Nasr did not assign a dollar amount to the labor that he performed on the vehicle.
In his second affidavit, Nasr averred that he had not been represented by counsel when he testified in the bankruptcy proceeding and the excerpted testimony did not "fully and accurately reflect all of the details of [his] dealing with Fidelis [Owobu] relating to the Rolls Royce." Nasr stated that he never agreed to provide Owobu with "free labor, free mechanical estimates, free storage and security, or free transportation of the Rolls Royce in question." Nasr also averred that Owobu attempted to involve him in "what appeared to be an improper series of transactions involving" the car, but Nasr "refused to become involved."
Owobu opposed Nasr's request for a continuance. He argued that Nasr had no grounds for a continuance of the summary judgment proceedings, Nasr's request for a continuance did not comply with the requirements in the rules of civil procedure, Nasr failed to specify what discovery was still needed, and Nasr's requested discovery was not relevant to any issue in the proceeding.
On June 29, 2020, the trial court rendered summary judgment in favor of Owobu and Omoba Investments. The court awarded $15,904 in damages, pre- and post-judgment interest, and $2,000 in trial-level attorney's fees. The court also awarded a total of $15,000 in conditional appellate-level attorney's fees.
Nasr filed a motion for new trial, arguing that the trial court should not have granted summary judgment without allowing a reasonable time for discovery. He also argued that the court should not have ruled on the motion in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the related local and statewide restrictions on public gatherings. Nasr further argued that Owobu did not meet his summary judgment burden because he offered no affirmative evidence to support his breach of contract claim, and he offered no evidence to rebut Nasr's affidavits. After Owobu responded to this motion, Nasr filed a reply and argued that the court's ruling on the summary judgment motion "in an expedited manner" violated Nasr's due process rights.
The trial court denied Nasr's motion for new trial. This appeal followed.
In his first issue, Nasr argues that the trial court erred by granting summary judgment in favor of Owobu and Omoba Investments on their breach of contract claim.
We review a trial court's summary judgment ruling de novo. Odyssey 2020 Acad., Inc. v. Galveston Cent. Appraisal Dist., 624 S.W.3d 535, 540 (Tex. 2021). In a traditional summary judgment motion, the movant bears the burden to establish that no genuine issue of material fact exists and he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Tex.R.Civ.P. 166a(c). When a plaintiff moves for summary judgment on his own cause of action, he must conclusively prove all essential elements of his claim as a matter of law. Leonard v. Knight, 551 S.W.3d 905, 909 (Tex. App.- Houston [14th Dist.] 2018, no pet.).
Evidence is conclusive if reasonable people could not differ in their conclusions. Helix Energy Sols. Grp., Inc. v. Gold 522 S.W.3d 427, 431 (Tex. 2017); see City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 814 (Tex. 2005) (). If the summary judgment movant establishes his entitlement to judgment, the burden shifts to the nonmovant to present...
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