Kay YOST, Appellant v. JERED CUSTOM HOMES, Appellee

399 S.W.3d 653, 2013 WL 1341121, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 4324
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedApril 3, 2013
Docket05-11-01589-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 399 S.W.3d 653 (Kay YOST, Appellant v. JERED CUSTOM HOMES, Appellee) 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
Kay YOST, Appellant v. JERED CUSTOM HOMES, Appellee, 399 S.W.3d 653, 2013 WL 1341121, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 4324 (Tex. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

Opinion by

Justice MYERS.

On the Court’s own motion, we withdraw the opinion of March 19, 2013 and vacate the judgment. The following is now the opinion of this Court.

Kay Yost appeals the táke-nothing summary judgment against her and in favor of Jered Custom Homes. Appellant brings two issues on appeal contending (1) the trial court erred by granting appellee’s motion for summary judgment, and (2) the trial court erred by considering appellee’s summary judgment evidence. We affirm the trial court’s judgment in part and reverse and remand in part.

BACKGROUND

This is a construction liability case concerning a house in Royse City, Texas. In 2004, Brad and Lea Byers hired appellee to construct the home. The Byerses had other professionals design the home, and the foundation was designed by Brad Byers’s employer, Childress Engineering Services, Inc. Appellee constructed the foundation and most of the house pursuant to a contract with the Byerses. The contract included an express warranty and a disclaimer of the implied warranty of good and workmanlike construction. The contract also provided that because the Byers-es had hired their own design professionals to design the house, the parties agreed that those design professionals, and not appellee, would be responsible for the adequacy of the design and the sufficiency of the contract documents prepared by those professionals. The contract also provided that the Byerses would be responsible for obtaining any necessary soil and subsoil tests “and any other tests which may affect the structural integrity of the Improvements.”

*657 In 2006, appellant and' her daughter, Tracy Yost, purchased the house from the Byerses. When appellant moved into the house, the locks she had previously installed no longer fit the doors. Appellant contacted Childress Engineering, which sent an engineer to her home. Childress Engineering purportedly inspected the foundation and reported that “the foundation is in a general satisfactory condition.”

Appellant filed a complaint with the Texas Residential Construction Commission (TRCC) alleging numerous problems with the house. The TRCC appointed an independent inspector, Robert Pierry, to investigate the claims of structural defects. Pi-erry reported that the soil under the house was causing upheaval of the foundation on the left, right, and rear sides of the house, which “appeared to be the result of an increase of moisture in the soil beneath the affected portions of the foundation. The poor drainage conditions that exist around the perimeter of the house have likely caused or contributed to cause [t]his increase in soil moisture.” Pierry concluded the foundation was within acceptable tolerances. Pierry recommended appellee repair a crack in the garage’s foundation by injecting it with epoxy. Pierry also recommended appellee repair some misaligned doors and windows, and that it repair a floor made uneven by improper framing or carpet pad installation. Pierry concluded that the uneven upstairs hall floor and the failure of a bedroom door to latch were not structural defects.

Appellant appealed Pierry’s report. The appeals panel for the TRCC concluded the builder should repair the uneven upstairs hall floor and bedroom door because, even though they were not structural defects, they were workmanship and materials defects and should be repaired under the implied warranty. Appellant also appealed Pierry’s failure to address appellant’s complaint that the house was lower in the center and was 2.6 inches out of tolerance. The appeals panel concluded this item was in compliance with the usual and customary residential construction practices.

Appellee made an offer to appellant to make the repairs recommended by Pierry and the appeals panel or to pay appellant $4000 for the contractor of appellant’s choice to make the repairs. Appellant never replied to this offer.

Appellant then had the house inspected by professional engineer Michael Porter. Porter concluded that negligent pier design resulted in distress cracking caused by foundation differential movement. The foundation’s differential movement, Porter stated, was “the result of negligent pier design without the benefit of a site specific geotechnical investigation and the absence of provisions to protect against heaving resulting from upward soil moisture migration.” He concluded it was not practical to make the corrections to return the home to like-new condition.

Appellant also had the house inspected by David Gregg, a licensed insurance adjuster and construction consultant. Gregg stated in his affidavit that appellee should have obtained a site-specific geotechnical report before building the home. He also stated that appellee was negligent in relying on Childress Engineering’s foundation design. “Had [appellee] obtained a site specific geotechnical survey prior to construction it could have taken steps to build the home so that it would not have been so subject to soil upheaval.” Gregg estimated the cost to repair the foundation and damage at $524,568.

On October 16, 2008, appellant and Tracy Yost sued appellee and other defendants for damages associated with the house. They sued appellee for negligence for failing “to obtain a site specific geo- *658 technical report or ensure that such a report was obtained prior to relying upon the foundation apparently designed by” Childress Engineering. The Yosts alleged this negligence resulted in the home being built without adequate provisions to protect against heaving from upward soil movement. The Yosts also alleged appel-lee was negligent because it “simply abdicated its responsibility to ensure that every aspect of the construction of Plaintiffs home was done in a good and workmanlike manner consistent with the standards in the industry.” The Yosts also alleged ap-pellee breached the implied warranties of habitability and of good and workmanlike construction when it “either built or designed the foundation improperly without obtaining a site specific geotechnical report or relied on others to do so for it.”

Appellee moved for summary judgment. Each side objected to the other’s summary judgment evidence. The trial court granted appellee’s motion and ordered that the Yosts take nothing on their claims against appellee. However, the trial court did not rule on the objections to the summary judgment evidence. Appellant brings this appeal of the summary judgment. 1

JURISDICTION

Appellee has informed the Court that in 2011, before the summary judgment became a final judgment, appellant’s lender foreclosed on the property and the house was sold at public auction to a third party. Appellee filed “Suggestion Re: Standing and Mootness,” asserting that because appellant no longer owns the house, her claims for negligence and breach of implied warranty from the home’s construction are moot because she no longer has standing to assert them. Appellant did not respond to appellee’s “Suggestion.’ ”

Standing is a component of subject-matter jurisdiction and may be raised for the first time on appeal. See Waco Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Gibson, 22 S.W.3d 849, 851 (Tex.2000).

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399 S.W.3d 653, 2013 WL 1341121, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 4324, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kay-yost-appellant-v-jered-custom-homes-appellee-texapp-2013.