Houston Laureate Associates, LTD. v. Marolyn Russell, Joel Goffman, M.D., and Park Laureate Place Homeowners' Association

504 S.W.3d 550, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12020, 2016 WL 6603715
Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided November 8, 2016·No. NO. 14-15-00491-CV·Published·Cited by 13 cases

Opinion

OPINION

Tracy Christopher, Justice

In this suit for breach of an easement agreement, defendant landowner Houston Laureate Associates, Ltd. (“Houston Laureate”) appeals from the judgment and permanent injunction rendered in favor of neighboring homeowners Marolyn Russell and Joel Goffman and Park Laureate Place Homeowners’ Association (“the Association”). Houston Laureate asserts that Russell and Goffman lack standing to pursue their claims; contends that the trial court erred in granting three motions for partial summary judgment and in denying a motion for new trial'; and challenges each of the six categories of acts that the trial court permanently enjoined it from performing. Although we conclude that the trial court ruled correctly in most of the challenged instances, we hold that a partial summary judgment on the question of attorney’s fees was overly broad and that one category of injunctive relief is too vague to be enforceable. We accordingly reform the judgment and permanent injunction to remedy these errors, and affirm the judgment as modified.

I, BACKGROUND

Houston Laureate owns an office building and some of the surrounding land. Houston Laureate’s neighbor is residential development Park Laureate Place (“the Residential Land”). When the Residential Land was being, developed, its then-owner Laureate Associates, Ltd. (“the Residential Landowner”) entered into a Recreational Easement Agreement (“the Agreement”) with Houston Laureate. In the Agreement, Houston Laureate granted the Residential Landowner a permanent, nonexclusive easement to use part of Houston Laureate’s land for recreational purposes. The Agreement refers to this part of Houston Laureate’s property as “the Recreational Land,” and it includes an exercise facility and a green belt traversed by asphalt walking paths.

The Agreement also mandated that, before any of the individual lots of the Residential Land were sold, the Residential Landowner had to establish a homeowners’ association and assign to it the Residential Landowner’s rights under the Agreement. The Residential Landowner did establish the Association and assign its rights in the Agreement to it, and homes built on the Residential Land were purchased by homeowners Marolyn Russell and Dr. Joel Goffman. We refer to Russell, Goffman, and the Association collectively as “the Residents.”

Disputes arose between Houston Laureate and the Residents concerning the .use of the Recreational Land. Russell sued Houston Laureate and sought injunctive relief; Goffman and the Association intervened and asserted further claims against Houston Laureate. 1 In particular, the Resi *555 dents alleged that Houston Laureate violated the Agreement by (a) charging a licensing fee to independent fitness instructors hired by individual homeowners to supervise their personal exercise programs, and (b) enacting a rule requiring anyone using the Recreational Land to remain on the asphalt walking paths at all times.

During the course of the litigation, Houston Laureate began charging its attorney’s fees to the Association and requiring the Association to collect the fees from the homeowners. When the Association refused to do so, Houston Laureate suspended the homeowners’ rights to use the Recreational Land and informed the Association that if any homeowner used the Recreational Land, Houston Laureate would contact the authorities and report the homeowner as a trespasser. The Residents responded by seeking injunctive relief regarding these matters as well. Houston Laureate requested a jury trial on all of these contested issues.

The trial court issued a temporary injunction to return the parties to the status quo; denied Houston Laureate’s motion for partial summary judgment challenging Russell’s and Goffman’s standing; and granted the Residents partial summary judgments on their claims challenging the licensing fees, the asphalt-path rule, and the imposition of attorney’s fees. After an evidentiary hearing, the trial court extended the temporary injunction, and the parties moved for entry of judgment and permanent injunction so they could proceed with this appeal of those rulings and of the underlying partial summary-judgment rulings. The trial court rendered a filial judgment that incorporated its priór rulings and included a permanent injunction.

II. Issues Presented

In six issues, Houston Laureate argues that the trial court erred in

• denying Houston Laureate’s motion for partial summary judgment on its asserted ground that Russell and Goffman lack standing to assert their claims;
• granting the Residents’ motion for partial summary judgment on their claim that Houston Laureate breached the Agreement by charging independent fitness instructors retained by the homeowners a licensing fee for the use of the Recreational Land’s exercise facility;
• granting the Residents partial summary judgment on their claim that Houston Laureate breached the Agreement by requiring anyone using the Recreational Land to remain on the. asphalt paths at all times;
• granting the Residents partial summary judgment holding that the Agreement’s indemnification provision does not authorize Houston Laureate to charge the attorney’s fees it incurred in this litigation to the Association;
• granting the Residents partial summary judgment holding that the Agreement’s “operation expenses” provision does not authorize Houston Laureate to charge a portion of the attorney’s fees it incurred in this litigation to the’Association; and
• granting the Residents final permanent injunctive relief that, according to Houston Laureate, (a) relied on erroneous summary-judgment rul- ■ ings, (b) deprived Houston Laureate of its right to a jury trial, and (c) ' granted nonspecific relief that the *556 Residents neither requested nor proved.

III. Partial Summary Judgments

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Houston Laureate Associates, LTD. v. Marolyn Russell, Joel Goffman, M.D., and Park Laureate Place Homeowners' Association, 504 S.W.3d 550, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 12020, 2016 WL 6603715 (Tex. Ct. App. 2016).

504 S.W.3d 550 (Houston Laureate Associates, LTD. v. Marolyn Russell, Joel Goffman, M.D., and Park Laureate Place Homeowners' Association) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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