Sanders Oil & Gas GP, LLC and Sanders Oil & Gas, LTD v. Ridgeway Electric

479 S.W.3d 293, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 1335, 2015 WL 590874
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 11, 2015
Docket08-13-00299-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 479 S.W.3d 293 (Sanders Oil & Gas GP, LLC and Sanders Oil & Gas, LTD v. Ridgeway Electric) 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
Sanders Oil & Gas GP, LLC and Sanders Oil & Gas, LTD v. Ridgeway Electric, 479 S.W.3d 293, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 1335, 2015 WL 590874 (Tex. Ct. App. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION

ANN CRAWFORD McCLURE, Chief Justice

Sanders Oil & Gas GP, LLC and Sanders Oil & Gas, Ltd. appeal from a judgment entered in favor of Ridgeway Electric. We reverse and render in part; we reverse arid remand in part; and affirm the judgment as modified.

FACTUAL SUMMARY

David Ridgeway and his wife, Nikiti Ridgeway, own Ridgeway Electric which is in the business of building electric power lines in oil fields. 1 The company also performs maintenance and repair, trouble shooting, and service calls., Joe Johnson contacted David about building power lines to five wells on what is referred to as the “Kirby lease.” The project also included the well “hookup” to the power lines'. According to David, the project consisted of two distinct parts: (1) the power line building and (2) the well hookup. The cost for the power line building was $1,200 per *298 pole while the cost of the well hookup was based on materials and labor. David explained that Johnson was the only “pumper” for Sanders Oil. Johnson told David where the poles and power lines could be put on the lease. David provided the price for the job to-.the project consultant for “Sanders Oil,” a man he knew only as “Wayne.”

At the time of trial, Johnson had worked in the oil business for approximately sixty years. He had worked for an entity he referred to simply as “Sanders Oil” which was owned by Gail Sanders. He was unfamiliar with the names “Sanders Oil & Gas GP, LLC” or “Sanders Oil & Gas, Ltd.” When Gail told Johnson that she needed to have power lines run to new wells on the Kirby lease, Johnson contacted David because he was familiar with him from other projects. According to Johnson, David gave him an estimate for the power line building which he passed on to Gail. Once the power lines had , been built, Johnson hired Ridgeway to do the well hookup for each of these five wells on the Kirby lease. Ridgeway also performed repair work on the Kirby lease.

Nikiti prepared the invoices for the Kirby lease project, including the additional repair work, and went over the invoices with Johnson before sending them to “Sanders Inc.” in' Granbury, Texas for payment. Some of the statements were paid, but more than $70,000 remained unpaid several months after Ridgeway completed the work. 2 Ridgeway introduced into evidence Plaintiffs Exhibit 16 which is an unsigned letter, dated April 15, 2010, from Gail Sanders to Ridgeway Electric. The letter is printed on Sanders Ltd.’s letterhead and reflects that Gail is the CEO. The letter addressed; Sanders Ltd.’s delay in payment of invoices from Ridgeway. Stating that Sanders Ltd. would be closing on a credit facility at the end of April 2010, Gail apologized for the delay in payment. •Ridgeway filed a mechanic’s and material-man’s lien on June 16, 2010 on the mineral estate of the Kirby lease in the amount of $80,357.16. The lien affidavit explained that a claim for $80,357.16 was owed to Ridgeway for labor and material furnished to “Sanders Oil & .Gas Company.”

On December 21, 2010, Ridgeway’s attorney sent a demand letter to “Sanders, Inc.” and Gail regarding the past due obligation- and the materialman’s lien. The letter made demand for payment -within twenty days and warned that if the amount owed was not paid, Ridgeway would pursue all remedies available. On January 10, 2011, Gail sent an email to the attorney regarding the letter. The email was sent from the Sander's Ltd. email address and stated’in pertinent part that:

We have made attempts to come to some conclusion regarding the work done by your client. Our last communication with Ridgeway entailed the wife of the owner asking my Controller to call her husband, and he. would most likely ‘go off on him.’.
Mr. Kosub, the work Ridgeway Electric performed on our lease was substandard, at best. We have had to re-do a lot of the work performed by Ridgeway which has cost us production and downtime, and additional cost.
We would like to come to a conclusion with regard to this matter. I feel Ridgeway can not [sic] justify the amount they charged us for sub standard [sic] work that we had to have partially re-done.

*299 Ridgeway filed suit stating claims for suit on a sworn account, breach of contract, quantum meruit/unjust enrichment, and foreclosure on the mechanic’s and ma-terialman’s lien. Appellants answered and asserted a counterclaim for quantum meruit, DTPA violations, breach of warranty, negligence, and negligent misrepresentation. . The trial court submitted Ridgeway’s breach of contract and quantum meruit claims and Appellants’ DTPA violations, breach of warranty, and negligence claims to the jury. The jury found against Appellants on their claims and in favor of Ridgeway on its breach of contract claim. The jury awarded damages against Sanders LLC in the amount of $35,126.50 and against Sanders Ltd. in the same amount. The trial court entered judgment against Sanders LLC and Sanders Ltd. in accordance with the jury’s verdict, awarded costs to Ridgeway in the amount of $3,033.35, awarded pre-judgment1 interest in the amount of $16,999.26, and. awarded Ridgeway its attorney’s fees in the amount of $19,066.40 plus conditional appellate awards.

AGENCY

In Issue One, Appellants challenge the legal sufficiency of the evidence supporting the jury’s findings that either Sanders LLC or Sanders Ltd. had an agreement with Ridgeway or that either one of them breached the agreement. 3

Standard of Review and Relevant Law

When a party attacks the legal sufficiency of an adverse finding on an issue for which it did not have the burden of proof, it must demonstrate that there is no evidence ' to support the 1 adverse finding. Croucher v. Croucher, 660 S.W.2d 55, 58 (Tex.1983). An appellate court will sustain a legal sufficiency or “no evidence” challenge if the party suffering the adverse decision at trial shows: (1) the complete absence of a vital fact; (2) the court, is barred by rules of law or evidence from giving weight to the only evidence offered to prove a- vital fact; (3) the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is-no more than a scintilla; or (4) the evidences establishes conclusively the opposite of the vital fact. City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 810 (Tex.2005); Stanley Works v. Wichita Falls Independent School District, 366 S.W.3d 816, 828 (Tex.App.-El Paso 2012, pet. denied). More than a scintilla of evidence exists when the evidence rises to a level that would enable reasonable and fair-minded people to differ in their conclusions. Ford Motor Company v. Ridgway, 135 S.W.3d 598, 601 (Tex.2004).

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479 S.W.3d 293, 2015 Tex. App. LEXIS 1335, 2015 WL 590874, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sanders-oil-gas-gp-llc-and-sanders-oil-gas-ltd-v-ridgeway-electric-texapp-2015.