Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Peggy Blackburn

Court of Appeals of Texas·Decided February 3, 2011·No. 02-10-00166-CV·Published

Opinion

COURT OF APPEALS SECOND DISTRICT OF TEXAS FORT WORTH

NO. 02-10-00166-CV

WELLS FARGO BANK, N.A. APPELLANT

V.

PEGGY BLACKBURN APPELLEE

----------

FROM THE 415TH DISTRICT COURT OF PARKER COUNTY

MEMORANDUM OPINION1 ----------

I. INTRODUCTION

Appellant Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. raises three issues challenging the trial

court’s judgment that it take nothing on its claims against Appellee Peggy

Blackburn for breach of contract and account stated. Wells Fargo claims that

Peggy is liable for the charges incurred on a Wells Fargo Visa credit card; Peggy

argues, and the trial court found, that she was merely an authorized user of the

1 See Tex. R. App. P. 47.4. credit card and was not personally liable for the debt on the credit card. For the

reasons set forth below, we will affirm the trial court’s judgment.

II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Peggy was married to Gilden Blackburn (―Gil‖) in 2002. In 2002, Gil

obtained Wells Fargo Visa credit cards with an account number ending in 9904;

Gil was the accountholder, and Peggy was simply an authorized user of the

credit card.2

After the Wells Fargo Visa credit card account had been opened, Peggy

inquired about getting rewards points for airline tickets. Wells Fargo told Peggy

that all she had to do to was complete an extra benefits form. According to

Peggy, a private banker at Wells Fargo completed the portion of the form

pertaining to Peggy’s information, and Peggy signed the form at the bank. Peggy

did not recall anything being on the form except her signature; the box beside

―Add a Joint Accountholder‖ was not checked. When the private banker went to

her computer to activate the benefits, she told Peggy that she was not authorized

to apply for benefits because Gil was the accountholder. The private banker told

Peggy to take the form home and have Gil sign it. After Gil signed it, he ―took it

from there.‖

2 There were two authorized users on the account: Peggy and her daughter. A record keeper with Wells Fargo testified that an ―authorized user‖ is not personally liable for the debt, and an account with an authorized user typically involves a parent/student situation. He further testified that authorized users’ names are not on the account, and authorized users do not get the information reported on their credit reports.

2 Gil and Peggy used their Wells Fargo Visa credit cards up until 2006.

Peggy filed for divorce in January 2006. Gil subsequently called Wells Fargo to

cancel the Visa credit card because he did not want to be held responsible for

charges on that account. The last time that Gil used the Visa account ending in

9904 was prior to March 10, 2006.

In March 2006 after Peggy had filed for divorce, she went to buy gas one

day, and her Wells Fargo Visa credit card was declined; Peggy discovered that

the credit card account had been frozen. The following week, she received a

letter from Wells Fargo stating that Gil had closed the account and had told them

that Peggy would assume responsibility for the outstanding balance. Peggy tried

to get the account ending in 9904 reinstated in March 2006 after Gil had closed

it, but Wells Fargo told her that she was not authorized to make changes to the

account because she was only an authorized user on the account, not the

accountholder. Peggy then asked her divorce lawyer to send Gil a letter

requesting that he reactivate the account. Gil thereafter told her that he had

reactivated the account,3 and she received a credit card with an account number

ending in 3155.4 Peggy testified that Wells Fargo never asked for any financial

information from her in connection with the issuance of the replacement credit

card and that she never supplied any financial information to Wells Fargo.

3 Gil testified that in response to the letter, he did not reinstate the Visa account. 4 Peggy testified that Gil knew about the 3155 card and told her to cut it up.

3 Gil testified that he did not learn that Wells Fargo had issued Peggy a Visa

card ending in 3155 until April 2007 when he received a letter from Wells Fargo

demanding $60,000. Gil claimed that he immediately contacted Wells Fargo and

explained that he had not made any of the charges and had never used that

account.

According to Peggy, right before Gil apparently closed the 9904 account,

she had received a bill on the 9904 account and had contacted Gil to see which

charges were his; when some charges on the card apparently were not made by

either Gil or her, she called Wells Fargo to report unauthorized charges on the

account. Wells Fargo told her that their policy was to report the card as lost or

stolen, to freeze that account, to open a new account with a new number, and

then to credit the account for the items that were not charged by the users. Wells

Fargo then issued the card on the 3155 account. Peggy used the new account

and testified that she incurred all of the charges on the 3155 account––

$61,000—―to meet the needs of [her] kids,‖ including paying for her daughter’s

wedding.

In November 2007, Peggy wrote a letter to Wells Fargo that used the term

―joint credit card.‖ Peggy testified that when she used the term ―joint credit card‖

in her letter to the bank, she did not know that the term had a legal meaning; she

simply meant that she considered it her joint responsibility to provide for her

children. She stated that the responsibility for the debt ―is obviously in both our

names.‖

4 Peggy spoke with Mary at Wells Fargo in December 2007. Mary spoke

with her supervisors before asking for Gil’s address. After Peggy gave Gil’s

address to Mary, Peggy did not receive anything else from Wells Fargo.

Peggy testified that she did not ask to become a joint accountholder and

that there was never any discussion about her becoming a joint accountholder.

Wells Fargo told her that she was a joint accountholder only after she had

incurred the charges on the 3155 account. However, Peggy testified that there

was also a time after those charges were incurred when Wells Fargo told her that

she was not liable on the debt.

Leo Holloway, a paralegal and record keeper at Wells Fargo, testified that

he was familiar with the statements related to the account ending in 9904 and the

account ending in 3155. Holloway testified that when the account ending in 9904

was opened in March 2002, Peggy was not personally liable because the

account was set up as an authorized user account with Peggy as an authorized

user; on the initial form to open the account, ―additional cardholder‖ was circled,

rather than joint accountholder, and Gil did not apply for the rewards points

program. The credit card agreement disclosures were sent to Gil when the

account was opened.

Holloway testified that Peggy became a joint accountholder on December

3, 2003, and became ―primary liable‖ at that point. Holloway said that he relied

on the ―Add a Joint Accountholder‖ part of the ―Extra Benefits Request Form‖ to

reach that conclusion, but he admitted that he did not know who had put a check

5 mark in the box next to add a joint accountholder. Holloway was positive that no

one at Wells Fargo would have completed that form. He assumed that Gil or

Peggy had completed the form, but he had no personal knowledge of whether

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Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. v. Peggy Blackburn, (Tex. Ct. App. 2011).

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