Hunt Building Co. v. John Hancock Life Insurance

583 F. App'x 419

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
• Decided: November 3, 2014
• Docket: 13-50747
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

PER CURIAM: **

This appeal lies from a final judgment after a bench trial in a breach of contract dispute. Because the district court correctly held the contract at issue was ambiguous, and correctly declined to apply the- doctrine of contra proferentem (i.e., construe ambiguous agreement against the drafter), we affirm.

The facts are well-known to the parties and set out fully in the opinions below. The Court will therefore not repeat them at length here. Suffice to say this is essentially a contract dispute between the developer of military housing (appellants) and a lender (appellees) regarding the construction of a guaranty and related deed of trust. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment, requesting the district court to construe the agreements as a matter of law. The district court denied the motions, holding that the agreements were ambiguous. Following a bench trial, the district court found the agreements should be construed for the lender. Appellants now argue again that this Court should construe the agreements in their favor as a matter of law or, in the alternative, that the agreements should be construed in their favor based on the doctrine of contra proferentem. We affirm for essentially the reasons given by the district court in its careful and thorough rulings below. See Memorandum Order Denying Plaintiffs Motion and Denying Defendants’ Cross-Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (Dec. 19, 2012) ROA.5137-78 (holding contracts ambiguous); Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law (July 3, 2013) ROA.5627, 5670-72 (discussing contra proferentem under New York law).

Cross-appellants ask us to “reverse” a comment apparently made by the district court in an unrecorded telephone conversation with counsel. We have no jurisdiction to review something other than a ruling by the district court and we decline to issue an advisory opinion. See 28 U.S.C. §§ 1291-92; Cutler v. Stephen F. Austin State Univ., 531 Fed.Appx. 523, 524 (5th Cir.2013) (unpub.) (“This court does not have jurisdiction to issue advisory opinions regarding decisions of the district court that have not been made at a trial that has not been held.”). We therefore dismiss the cross-appeal for lack of jurisdiction. We also remand for the limited purpose of allowing the district court to consider cross-appellants’ request for attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in the course of this appeal.

AFFIRMED.

** Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent-except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R. 47.5.4.