Sauls v. Munir Bata, LLC
| Decision Date | 11 June 2015 |
| Docket Number | NO. 02-14-00208-CV,NO. 02-14-00214-CV,02-14-00208-CV,02-14-00214-CV |
| Parties | HAL SAULS APPELLANT v. MUNIR BATA, LLC, AND THE COLONY ASSETS DEVELOPMENT, LLC APPELLEES AND HAL SAULS APPELLANT v. MUNIR BATA, LLC; WILLIAM J. BALDWIN; AMERICAN NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, LP; CHICAGO TITLE COMPANY; AND THE COLONY ASSETS DEVELOPMENT, LLC APPELLEES |
| Court | Texas Court of Appeals |
FROM THE 431ST DISTRICT COURT OF DENTON COUNTY
FROM THE 431ST DISTRICT COURT OF DENTON COUNTY
Appellant Hal Sauls appeals from (1) the trial court's order sustaining appellees The Colony Asset Development, LLC (Colony Asset) and Munir Bata, LLC's (MB) objections to Sauls's summary-judgment evidence and (2) the trial court's order granting Colony Asset and MB's motion for summary judgment on Sauls's counterclaims. We dismiss one appeal and affirm the trial court's summary-judgment orders in the other appeal.
On November 15, 2007, Sauls filed an affidavit of claim in support of his mechanic's and materialman's lien (the M&M lien) against property located in Denton County. In the affidavit, Sauls averred that he was owed $17,601.41 after he "prepared plans and/or plats, rendered services, and performed labor . . . during May through August, 2007" on the Denton County property after being hired by appellee William J. Baldwin, who was the president and "Authorized Agent" of American National Development, LP (American). Sauls believed theowners of the Denton County property at the time he performed the work were Colony Asset "and or" MB; however, there is evidence that MB sold the property to Colony Asset in 2004.2 Sauls claimed that Baldwin, acting as the president and authorized agent of American, hired him for three, distinct jobs in 2007: (1) remodel a shopping center in Collin County (the Collin County project),3 (2) build retaining walls, storm sewers, and box culverts on the Denton County property (the box-culvert project), and (3) act as job superintendent on the Denton County property (the superintendent project). The M&M lien did not assert a claim against the Collin County property.
Shortly after Sauls's M&M lien was filed, MB, Colony Asset, and Bata notified Sauls that no agreement had been entered into between MB, Colony Asset, Bata, American, or Baldwin because Colony Asset had not yet hired a general contractor for the box-culvert project or the superintendent project on the Denton County property. Although MB, Colony Asset, and Bata asked Sauls to release his M&M lien, Sauls refused. On January 10, 2008, MB filed suit against Sauls raising a fraudulent-lien claim (the original case). See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. §§ 12.002, 12.003(a)(8) (West Supp. 2014). The next day, appellee Chicago Title Insurance Company (Chicago Title) asked Sauls to sign arelease of the M&M lien on the Denton County property in exchange for "payment at closing in the sum of $19,951.41." Sauls signed the notarized release on January 12, 2008, but the record does not reflect that the release was filed. See Tex. Prop. Code Ann. § 53.152 (West 2014). On January 17, 2008, Sauls contacted Chicago Title, complaining that he had not been paid as promised for signing the release and threatened to "proceed with legal action."
Colony Asset intervened in MB's original case against Sauls and also asserted a statutory, fraudulent-lien claim against Sauls. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 60. At some point, Sauls filed a third-party petition in the original case against American, Baldwin, and Chicago Title.4 See Tex. R. Civ. P. 38(a). On May 6, 2008, MB filed a motion to nonsuit its claims against Sauls.5 See Tex. R. Civ. P. 162.
Sauls raised three counterclaims against MB and Colony Asset in the original case: quantum meruit/unjust enrichment, breach of contract, and negligent misrepresentation.6 See Tex. R. Civ. P. 97. Regarding the Collin County project, Sauls raised only the breach-of-contract counterclaim and asserted damages of $4,600, which was the amount he alleged remainedunpaid. In his breach-of-contract counterclaim regarding all three projects, Sauls asserted that MB and Colony Asset could be held liable for breach of contract by virtue of American and Baldwin's actual and apparent authority conferred by MB and Colony Asset. Both MB and Colony Asset filed verified answers to Sauls's counterclaims, generally denying Sauls's allegations and asserting that they could not be sued in the capacity in which they had been sued because they had never entered into any agreement with Sauls, American, or Baldwin and because MB did not own the Denton County property at the time Sauls alleged he worked on the project. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 92, 93(2).
On September 13, 2013, MB and Colony Asset, as counterdefendants, filed a no-evidence motion for summary judgment directed to Sauls's counterclaims, including his two liability theories applicable to Sauls's breach-of-contract counterclaim. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a(i). On September 17, 2013, MB and Colony Asset filed and served on Sauls by fax a notice that their no-evidence motion for summary judgment had been set for a hearing on October 11, 2013. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a(c). That same day, the trial court sent the parties a letter stating that it would decide the motion "without argument" at its "earliest convenience following" the October 11, 2013 submission date, but that the submission date was "the same as a hearing date for purposes of calculating the [seven-day] deadline to file a response to the motion or for movant's reply to the response, if any." See id.
On October 4, 2013, Sauls responded, arguing probative evidence raised genuine issues of material fact, preventing summary judgment, and attached his affidavits; the M&M lien; three affidavits by Bata, which had been previously filed with the trial court; "Contractual Documents between . . . Bata and . . . Baldwin"; an application submitted to the city where the box-culvert and superintendent projects were located, seeking approval of the proposed development (the development application); and minutes from a June 21, 2007 meeting between American, Colony Asset, the Texas Department of Transportation (TDOT), an engineering firm, and Bata about the box-culvert and superintendent projects. On October 10, 2013,7 MB and Colony Asset replied in support of their no-evidence motion and objected to most of Sauls's summary-judgment evidence. They did not object to the M&M lien or Bata's previously filed affidavits. That same day, Sauls responded to their evidentiary objections but also attached "additional summary judgment evidence." This evidence consisted of MB's original petition, MB's subsequent nonsuit, and excerpts from Bata's September 15, 2010 deposition.
On October 18, 2013, the trial court dismissed the original case for want of prosecution after the parties "failed to announce 'ready' or 'not ready' for [the October 21, 2013] trial [setting], to request a pre-trial hearing or otherwisecommunicate in any manner with the Court regarding their readiness for trial." See Denton Cnty. (Tex.) Dist. & Statutory Cnty. Cts. Loc. R. 2.10. Sauls filed a motion to reinstate the case, which the trial court granted on December 30, 2013. The trial court informed the parties that it would issue a ruling on the no-evidence motion and also set the case for a pretrial conference on April 4, 2014, with a trial date of April 7, 2014.
On January 29, 2014, the trial court sustained each of MB and Colony Asset's objections to Sauls's summary-judgment evidence filed on October 4, 2013, and granted their no-evidence motion for summary judgment on Sauls's claims for quantum meruit/unjust enrichment and breach of contract and on Sauls's apparent-authority theory of liability. On March 31, 2014, the trial court entered a supplemental summary-judgment order granting summary judgment on Sauls's claim for negligent misrepresentation and on Sauls's actual-authority theory of liability. That same day, the trial court also severed Sauls's counterclaims against MB and Colony Asset out of the original case, rendering the trial court's summary-judgment orders a final judgment on Sauls's counterclaims against MB and Colony Asset (the counterclaim case).
On April 4, 2014, the trial court granted Colony Asset a nonsuit of its fraudulent-lien claim against Sauls in the original case. Three days later, the trial court granted Sauls a nonsuit of his third-party claims against Baldwin and American in the original case. Sauls filed a motion for new trial in the original case, asking that the trial court vacate its order granting MB and Colony Asset'sno-evidence motion and arguing that he had produced "evidence required to raise a genuine issue of material fact on the essential elements of his counterclaims."8 The motion was overruled by operation of law. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 329b(c). Sauls filed a notice of appeal in both the original case and the counterclaim case but stated he was only appealing from the January 29, 2014 summary-judgment order and the March 31, 2014 supplemental summary-judgment order, which were entered in the counterclaim case.
In his appeal from the original case, Sauls filed a motion to consolidate the appeal with his appeal from his counterclaim case. We granted the motion, consolidating the two appeals, but ordered that each appeal would continue to bear its respective case number. Sauls raises no arguments directed to any orders or rulings in the original case and specifically states that he challenges only the two summary-judgment orders entered in favor of MB and Colony Asset on Sauls's counterclaims against them. The title of Sauls's notice of appeal was "Counter-Plaintiff Hal Sauls's Notice of Appeal." Therefore, there is nothing toreview arising out of the original case because the counterclaim case as to MB and Colony Asset was severed out of it. We dismiss Sauls's...
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