CORPUS CHRISTI - The 13th Court of Appeals recently affirmed a summary judgment victory in favor of Skaggs & Guerra in a lawsuit brought against the law firm.
The appeal stems from a legal malpractice claim arising from an underlying personal injury lawsuit.
In the underlying lawsuit, Ray Castillo sued Unimex, a trucking company, and employee Luis de Jesus Lara Muñoz (Lara) for damages after Lara hit Castillo in a company tractor-trailer.
At trial, Lara did not dispute that he was fully responsible for the crash, according to the 13th Court’s July 10 opinion.
Unimex had a $1,000,000 commercial auto liability insurance policy with United Specialty Insurance Company (USIC). USIC hired Skaggs & Guerra to represent Unimex and Lara. Throughout the litigation, Castillo made three Stowers demands: one for policy limits of $1,000,000, one for $750,000, and another, during trial, for $915,000.
“It is undisputed that Olin Bonner, the insurance claim handler for the underlying suit, had the ultimate power to accept or deny the settlement demands on behalf of USIC,” the opinion states. “Bonner’s team rejected the first Stowers demand. Bonner authorized $250,000 in response to Castillo’s second demand and $350,000 for the last demand, which Castillo rejected.”
After a jury trial, the trial court entered a final judgment against Unimex for $2,857,539.32, not including pre or post judgment interest.
Unimex sued USIC for, among other things, violating the Stowers doctrine and for failing to settle the lawsuit within the policy limits, and sued Lynse Guerra and John Skaggs (Skaggs & Guerra) for negligence, gross negligence, and breach of fiduciary duty.
The opinion states that Skaggs & Guerra filed both traditional and no-evidence motions for summary judgment on causation. The firm also filed a traditional, partial motion for summary judgment on Unimex’s breach of fiduciary duty claim, arguing that fee forfeiture was not an available remedy under that claim.
On appeal, Unimex argued that the trial court erred when it granted Skaggs & Guerra’s motions for summary judgment and found that no genuine issue of material fact exists as to the element of causation and fee forfeiture is not an available remedy for its breach of fiduciary duty claim.
Justices rejected Unimex’s arguments that the summary judgment evidence created a fact issue, concluding that Unimex failed to produce a scintilla of probative evidence to raise a genuine issue of material fact on causation.
Justices also held that Unimex cites to no authority that contradicts the well-settled rule that a plaintiff-client is not entitled to recover forfeiture of attorneys’ fees paid by a third party.
Case No. 13-23-00348-CV
