Hennessey v. Skinner

698 S.W.2d 382, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 12007
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedAugust 22, 1985
DocketC14-85-120-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 698 S.W.2d 382 (Hennessey v. Skinner) 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
Hennessey v. Skinner, 698 S.W.2d 382, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 12007 (Tex. Ct. App. 1985).

Opinions

J. CURTISS BROWN, Chief Justice.

Appellants Patrick Hennessey and Mass-Tex Enterprises, Inc., (the corporation through which Hennessey conducted his business ventures) sued appellee Sam Skinner for breach of contract, fraud, partnership dissolution and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (hereinafter the Act or the DTP A) in an action stemming from the collapse of their cattle business. Trial was to the court. The court awarded appellants $1266.00 in damages [384]*384but refused to treble the first $1000 of the award under the DTPA or to award appellants prejudgment interest, costs, or attorney’s fees. Appellants urge six points of error on appeal, all stemming from the court’s finding that appellants were not “consumers” under Section 17.41 of the DTPA. We affirm the judgment as modified.

Patrick Hennessey and Sam Skinner became friends based on their respective wives’ common interest in horses and their own in cattle. Hennessey had moved to Richmond, Texas from Boston and wanted to become a cowboy. He hired himself out for a little or no money to ranchers over a period of years to learn to work cattle. He met Skinner in 19£1 and began travelling to Skinner’s ranch near Monaville, Texas twice a week to help him work his cattle for free.

On June 29,1982, after working for Skinner for six or more months on this basis, Hennessey paid Skinner $2000 for a ten percent interest in Skinner’s herd of 63 cows. He also agreed to pay Skinner $150 per year as his proportionate (ten percent) contribution to Skinner’s grass lease. These transactions were evidenced by a bill of sale signed by Skinner. On July 17 of the same year, Hennessey paid Skinner $120 for a ten percent interest in Squanto, a registered Longhorn bull. This transaction was also shown by a bill of sale signed by Skinner. The two men entered into a partnership for the raising and selling of cattle, agreeing to share profits and expenses on a percentage of ownership basis.

A year later, after relations between the parties had become strained, Hennessey learned that at the time he purchased his interest in the cattle, the herd were encumbered by two security interests held by Houston Agricultural Credit Corporation and that they were owned by P&S Partnership, not by Skinner individually. He further discovered that Squanto had been registered in Skinner’s name only. Skinner, meanwhile, who was experiencing financial problems, sold at auction all the cattle on the ranch, including Squanto, to pay his indebtedness to the Credit Corporation. Skinner received $12,660.00 for the cattle but did not account for any of the proceeds to Hennessey. The trial court awarded Hennessey ten percent of these proceeds, or $1,266.00. Neither party disputes that $1266.00 was the proper measure of Hen-nessey’s actual damages in this case. The court also found that appellants’ reasonable attorney fees at the trial level would be $2400 but did not award them.

In their first two points of error appellants challenge the court’s finding that they were not consumers as defined by the Act. Before any recovery under the DTPA can be had it is necessary to plead and prove that the complaining party was a “consumer.” Woods v. Littleton, 554 S.W.2d 662, 666 (Tex.1977). Appellant here properly pled that he and Mass-Tex were consumers. We also think that appellant and Mass-Tex proved themselves to be consumers under the DTPA as a matter of law.

A “consumer” as defined at the time the transactions in this ease occurred meant “an individual, partnership, corporation, or governmental entity who seeks or acquires ... any goods or services.” TEX.BUS & COM.CODE ANN. § 17.45(4) (Vernon Supp.1985). “Goods” as defined under § 17.45(1) of the Act means “tangible chattels or real property purchased or leased for use.”

The question raised by this appeal is whether a purchase of cattle made to enter into a commercial ranching partnership with the seller is a purchase of goods “for use” covered by the DTPA. That cattle in general are goods covered by the DTPA is not in dispute. See Guerra v. Brumlow, 630 S.W.2d 425 (Tex.App. — San Antonio 1982, no writ). However, our holding in Rotello v. Ring Around Products, 614 S.W.2d 455 (Tex.Civ.App. — Houston [14th Dist.] 1981, writ ref’d n.r.e.) may have created the impression that only goods which are used up or lose their identity upon being put to use can form the basis of a DTPA action. See Rotello at p. 460. We wish to correct that impression here. Since [385]*385the ordinary meaning of “for use” includes use as breeding stock, Squanto and the cattle would qualify as goods “for use” even under Rotello ⅛ overall common-sense standard. But the recent case of Big H Auto Auction, Inc. v. Saenz Motors, 665 S.W.2d 756 (Tex.1984), in treating a pre-1983 transaction such as ours, specifically held that the “for use” concept includes purchases purely for resale as well. Rotel-lo’s extinction “requirement” is therefore obsolete.

Big H Auto teaches that goods are goods “for use” “for whatever use was intended to be made of the [goods].” Big H Auto at 758. Big H Auto prohibits any limitation of the “for use” concept, stating that such limitation “would be contrary to the statutory madate of § 17.44 on construction and application of the Act.” Id. We therefore hold that the purchase of cattle for commercial cattle raising purposes generally is a purchase of goods “for use” covered by the DTPA.

Appellee contends that a percentage interest in a herd of cattle has no physical attributes and therefore is intangible. Thus he argues that Hennessey did not purchase goods, since goods must be “tangible chattels or real property.” This contention has little merit. As appellant pointed out at oral argument, the plaintiff consumers in Rotello who purchased soybean seed for cultivation did not make separate purchases of each individual seed they bought. They purchased an amount of seed, just as Hennessey purchased a number of cattle. Both the purchase of the percentage of the herd of 63 cattle and the purchase of the ten percent interest in Squanto are both recorded in bills of sales as would any purchase of individual cattle. Indeed, stating a purchase of cattle in terms of a percentage of a herd instead of individual cattle is one way of preventing confusion and possible strife in a relationship with the seller/partner since the purchaser’s share in a herd will remain constant. The purchase of a percentage of a herd of cattle is a purchase of cattle and therefore of goods.

Appellee further contends that Hen-nessey intended in the course of the 1982 transactions with Skinner to purchase an intangible partnership interest and therefore cannot invoke the provisions of the DTPA. This argument is without merit. Hennessey received bills of sale purporting to transfer title to his interest in the herd and in the lease. These things are not a partnership interest. Purchase of the cattle and of a portion of the grass lease enabled Hennessey to become a partner with Skinner, but the encumbered cattle “form[ed] the basis of the complaint,” Saenz Motors v. Big H Auto Auction,

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Hennessey v. Skinner
698 S.W.2d 382 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1985)

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Bluebook (online)
698 S.W.2d 382, 1985 Tex. App. LEXIS 12007, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hennessey-v-skinner-texapp-1985.