Jeff Robinson Building Co. v. Scott Floors, Inc.

630 S.W.2d 779, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4114
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 18, 1982
DocketA2940
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 630 S.W.2d 779 (Jeff Robinson Building Co. v. Scott Floors, Inc.) 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
Jeff Robinson Building Co. v. Scott Floors, Inc., 630 S.W.2d 779, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4114 (Tex. Ct. App. 1982).

Opinion

PRICE, Justice.

This appeal rises from a summary judgment in favor of appellee, plaintiff in the trial court, based on its suit on a sworn account. The issue is whether the allegations and annexed account of Plaintiff’s Petition allege a prima facie sworn account case against the individual defendants. We hold it does not and reverse and remand as to the individual defendants.

We summarize the chronology of events for clarity. Appellee filed its suit on a sworn account against Jeff Robinson Building Company, a Texas corporation, and appellants Jeff Robinson and Penelope Robin *780 son, individually, as directors of the corporation, alleging their use of the corporate veil to evade existing obligations of the corporation. Affixed to the original petition are the affidavit of Jerry Lee Scott, president of Scott Floors, Inc., and a copy of the account on which the suit is based. All three defendants joined in filing an unsworn general denial. Thereafter, appel-lee filed its motion for summary judgment contending as the basis thereof that appellants’ answer was “insufficient in law to constitute a defense” to appellee’s suit and that these pleadings showed there was no genuine issue as to any material fact, and thus appellee was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The motion was accompanied by an affidavit of appellee’s attorney in support of attorney’s fees. No other summary judgment evidence was presented. No response to the motion for summary judgment was filed prior to the hearing on May 8,1981, and the motion was granted on that day as to all three defendants according to recitations in the judgment and on the docket sheet. The Summary Judgment recites that the liability of the individual defendants was based on a cause of action for sworn account under Rule 185. The judgment was based on the insufficiency of appellants’ original answer, a general denial, and not upon any Summary Judgment evidence other than an affidavit for attorney’s fees. Before the judgment was signed on June 17, the individual appellants, Jeff and Penelope Robinson, filed an amended answer denying, under oath, the allegations in appellee’s original suit relative to the alter ego theory as well as a Rule 185 sworn denial. Said answer was not timely filed and was not considered by the trial court. The trial court was well within its discretion in not considering the untimely filed amended answer. After the judgment was signed, the individual appellants filed a motion to vacate judgment and for a new trial alleging their failure to timely file an amended answer prior to the hearing on appellee’s motion for summary judgment was the result of inaction and mistake in that the amended answer was misplaced by appellant Jeff Robinson and, hence, was not signed until May 15, some seven days after the hearing at which summary judgment was granted. Appellants also allege a meritorious defense to the suit on a sworn account, denying they ever conducted business in their individual capacities. Said motion was denied on July 2, 1981. The individual defendants have perfected their appeal 1 and bring before this court three points of error.

In their first point of error, appellants contend the sworn account sued upon was insufficient under Tex.R.Civ.P. 185 and argue they are strangers to the transaction and, therefore, are not required to file a Rule 185 sworn denial.

Appellants rely on Jones v. Ben Maines Air Conditioning, Inc., 621 S.W.2d 437 (Tex.Civ.App.—Texarkana 1981, no writ) to support their general allegation that the account itself is deficient. We note initially that neither the trial court nor this court has been apprised by appellants in what way the account fails to comply with the requirements of Rule 185. As Jones explains,

The provisions of Rule 185 ... [require] that the plaintiff must set forth in his pleading a statement or invoice, or attach and incorporate such statement or invoice as an exhibit, which clearly identifies the nature of the items constituting the sworn account .... The systematic record . .. must clearly identify the amount or nature of the labor done or of the materials furnished, the date that such labor was performed or materials furnished, the charge for the labor, and the charge for materials. Id. at 438.

The invoices before us, appended to appel-lee’s petition as Exhibit A, are dated and specify the materials, the amounts thereof, their unit prices, their various subtotals, and an overall total due of $2,511.12. The accompanying affidavit of appellee’s president clearly sets out that the factual allega *781 tions in the petition are true, correct, and within his personal knowledge. Further, it stipulates “all just and lawful offsets, payments and credits have been allowed” and the amount stated is “due, owing and unpaid.”

In our opinion, the above documents fall well within the requirements of Rule 185 and, in the absence of some specific showing of a deficiency, constitute a sound basis for a suit on a sworn account.

This leaves us with appellants’ contention that they were strangers to the transaction and, as such, were not required to file a sworn denial pursuant to Rule 185.

Appellee relies on Bishop v. B. L. Moorhouse Co., 619 S.W.2d 462 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1981, no writ) 2 , which states “if a sworn denial is not filed in compliance with Rules 93(k) and 185, T.R. C.P., the defendant may not dispute the receipt of the items or services, or the correctness of the stated charges.” Id. at 464. Nevertheless, Bishop goes on to say the above rule as to the necessity of a sworn denial does “not apply to third parties who are strangers to the transaction.” Id. at 465; Boysen v. Security Lumber Co., Inc., 531 S.W.2d 454, 456 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1975, no writ); Copeland v. Hunt, 434 S.W.2d 156, 158 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi 1968, writ ref’d n. r. e.). See also Mann v. Jack Roach Bissonnet, Inc., 628 S.W.2d 716 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1981, no writ). If appellants were strangers to the transaction as they allege, the sworn denial under Tex.R.Civ.P. 185 was not required and their original answer, an unsworn general denial, sufficed to put at issue the allegations of appellee’s petition ■as to these individual appellants. Copeland at 158. Appellee relies on Bishop in urging that appellants’ waived their “strangers to the transaction” argument by not raising it in the trial court. We do not believe such an answer in the trial court is necessary where the plaintiff’s own pleadings reflect the lack of a prima facie sworn account case against the appellants. As the court noted in Boysen

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Bluebook (online)
630 S.W.2d 779, 1982 Tex. App. LEXIS 4114, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jeff-robinson-building-co-v-scott-floors-inc-texapp-1982.