Ford Motor Co. v. Castillo

200 S.W.3d 217, 2006 WL 1553252
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 24, 2006
Docket13-04-638-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 200 S.W.3d 217 (Ford Motor Co. v. Castillo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ford Motor Co. v. Castillo, 200 S.W.3d 217, 2006 WL 1553252 (Tex. Ct. App. 2006).

Opinions

OPINION

Opinion by

Justice GARZA.

Ford Motor Company appeals a final judgment entered against it for breach of a settlement agreement. We affirm the judgment.

Background

Procedurally, this is an unusually-postured case. The Plaintiffs originally sued Ford for products liability after a roll-over accident involving a Ford sports-utility vehicle.1 A jury trial was held in Cameron County. While the jury was in deliberations, the trial court received a note from the presiding juror, which asked, “What is the maximum amount that can be awarded?” The trial court reviewed the note and then read it into the record.

Having heard the question, the parties and their counsel commenced settlement [220]*220discussions and almost immediately reached an agreement. They announced the agreement to the trial court on the record: Ford promised to pay the Plaintiffs a confidential sum to drop their claims and to release Ford from liability.

The trial court recognized the parties’ agreement, and the jury was brought back into the courtroom, informed that the case had settled, and then discharged. The trial court thanked the jurors for their service and told them that they were free to discuss the case with counsel and the parties if they wished to do so.

After the jury was discharged, counsel for Ford interviewed the jurors and learned information that made Ford reconsider the settlement agreement. Apparently, the jury had not answered the charge’s two questions on liability when the note about damages was sent out. According to Ford, the jury’s consideration of damages — as demonstrated by the note— was improper because the charge specifically instructed the jury to consider damages only if it first answered “yes” to one of the liability questions. Ford maintained that the jury’s disregard for the instruction amounted to misconduct.

Ford’s information also indicated that the note was sent by the presiding juror without the knowledge or consent of the other jurors. Ford suspected that there may have been an improper outside influence on the jury. It also came to believe that, despite the note, the jury might have found no liability if its deliberations had not been interrupted by the parties’ settlement.

Ford’s counsel openly contemplated fraudulent inducement and mutual mistake as justifications for reneging on the settlement. Ford eventually filed a motion to delay settlement, requesting additional time to conduct discovery regarding the jury’s deliberations and the circumstances of the note which had prompted the parties to settle. The motion read in part, “Ford requests that it be allowed to take discovery, or that the Court independently undertake discovery, on the issue of outside influence.” Attached to the motion were four affidavits from jurors Ford had contacted.

At the hearing on Ford’s motion to delay, counsel for Ford reiterated and expounded upon the request for court-sanctioned discovery:

[I]t is to me something that should be of concern to the Court if there was any outside influence, and it may be that nothing will show up about it at all, but there’s only one way to find out and that’s to have either the Court do its own investigation and or the Court allow us to bring the jurors in and have a hearing in front of the Court and or to depose them and then come back to the Court with our findings and make a determination as to where we go from there.

The trial court stated that it had reviewed the juror affidavits submitted by Ford. The court also noted that it could not discern “anything specific” to indicate an improper outside influence, but also could not dismiss the possibility that “something could have gone wrong.” In the trial court’s words

[I]t does bother me that I have affidavits here, you know, that there are suggestions, not anything specific, but the fact that ... these affidavits are here ... does bother me ... [The jurors] do have a right to talk to the lawyers if they want to talk to the lawyers. They have a right to make an affidavit if they want to make an affidavit....
[T]he affidavits [submitted by Ford] ... are proper and I think that ... [they are] sufficient ... to apprise the Court [221]*221of something that could have gone wrong.

The trial court asked for case law on the relief requested in Ford’s motion to delay:

The Court: Now, ... I want you to tell me now if there is any case similar that you all know about....
Counsel for Plaintiffs: Not from the plaintiffs, Your Honor....
Counsel for Ford: Your Honor, the answer to that is I don’t. And I think that what we need to look at if the Court can give us an opportunity to do some further research into that and see. Look outside the State of Texas because inside the State of Texas there’s nothing, but outside ... Texas if we get a chance to look at it we may be able [to] find something that addresses this same situation.

The trial court ultimately denied Ford’s motion to delay but nevertheless encouraged Ford to conduct its own investigation:

The Court: I’ve read the affidavits[.] [T]hey don’t tell me anything!,] only that there could have been something[,] and I’m not going to be the first judge to do this and disturb the jury.... I just don’t find any good reason ... to do that and I’ll tell you right now. If I would have had something specific here, a lot of you guys would have been in trouble if it did happen.... I can’t do it without any authority and so you all follow the rules you all need to follow, do whatever you need to do....

After the hearing, Ford continued its refusal to honor the settlement agreement. Apparently following the trial court’s recommendation, Ford also continued its independent investigation into the jury’s deliberations.

Eventually, the Plaintiffs filed a motion to enforce the settlement agreement. At a hearing on the motion, counsel for Ford assured the trial court that, despite its prior refusals, Ford would now pay the settlement amount. Counsel advised the court that Ford’s performance would be delayed by two weeks because Ford needed to draft documents for the parties to execute which would release Ford from the case. Counsel did not reurge Ford’s previous request for further discovery. In fact, counsel assured the trial court that Ford would pay the settlement amount, thus leaving the impression that no further discovery would be necessary. In counsel’s words, ‘Tour Honor, we have no problem to — in dealing with this.”

The court granted Ford’s request for additional time and stated that performance would be excused for two weeks so that counsel for Ford could draw up release documents for the parties to execute. The relief requested in the Plaintiffs’ motion to enforce settlement was otherwise granted. Ford was directed to deposit the settlement amount into a qualified settlement fund as soon as the release documents were executed.

Despite counsel’s assurances, Ford subsequently reneged and reurged its grounds for avoiding the settlement agreement. It filed a motion asking the trial court to set aside the settlement agreement and to grant a new trial, or alternatively, to declare a mistrial based upon juror misconduct.

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Bluebook (online)
200 S.W.3d 217, 2006 WL 1553252, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ford-motor-co-v-castillo-texapp-2006.