Court Opinion

ID: 9748331
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-27 16:00:07.341141+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:25:34.478121
License: Public Domain

PAUL W. GREEN, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur in that portion of the majority’s opinion holding that this contract action is not a collateral attack on the personal injury judgment, and that Balderas is not entitled to a summary judgment. I dissent, however, to that portion of the majority’s opinion holding that a fact issue exists regarding the existence of a settlement agreement between Harris and Balderas. I would hold that the summary judgment evidence establishes that Balderas settled her bodily injury claim against Harris for $20,000 and that Harris and USAA are *80entitled to a judgment limiting their liability to that amount.
The question is whether the summary judgment evidence establishes an enforceable settlement agreement. A settlement agreement is judged like any other contract and, to be enforceable, must contain all the elements necessary to form a binding contract. A binding contract is made when there is an offer, an acceptance in strict compliance with the terms of the offer, and a meeting of the minds. See Copeland v. Alsobrook, 3 S.W.3d 598, 604 (Tex.App.-San Antonio 1999, pet. denied). In addition, consideration is a fundamental element of a contract. Id.
The facts surrounding the purported settlement agreement, detailed in the majority opinion, are essentially without dispute. On August 23, William Tinning, the lawyer for Consuelo, Octavio and Marta Balderas, wrote a letter to Mike Glover, the adjuster for USAA, Harris’s insurer, making a demand for $1.5 million for each of his plaintiffs; provided, however, that if that amount exceeded Harris’s policy limits, the demand was made for full policy limits for each. On August 25, Glover responded by telephone, speaking to Tinning’s paralegal, Anna Waldrop, making a counter-offer for a partial settlement by offering the full $20,000 policy limit for Consuelo Balderas’s bodily injury claim only. The counter-offer was accepted. We know this because on September 7 Waldrop called Glover looking for the settlement check and release. Later the same day, Tinning’s office sent someone to Glover’s office to pick up the check and the release.
Glover prepared a transmittal letter to Tinning, dated September 7, enclosing the check and release. The letter stated in clear, underlined terms that the settlement was for Consuelo’s bodily injury claim only. The form release, although it contained general release language and called for Octavio’s signature, was expressly limited to releasing only Consuelo’s bodily injury claim by the conspicuous addition of the phrase “FOR BODILY INJURY CLAIM OF CONSUELO BALDERAS ONLY” on the face of the document. And the check itself, although it included Consuelo’s husband as payee, was also expressly limited to payment for Consuelo’s bodily injury claim only.
These documents, considered along with the affidavits of the participants, paint a clear picture of the parties’ intent-which was to settle only Consuelo’s bodily injury claim. Neither the inclusion of Octavio’s name on the documents nor the existence of form general release language, in light of the more specific limiting language on the documents, allow for any other reasonable interpretation.
What, then, is the effect of including Octavio’s name on the check and the release? USAA says Octavio’s name was added because it believes a per-person bodily injury limit in an insurance policy includes a spouse’s loss of consortium claim as a matter of law. See McGovern v. Williams, 741 S.W.2d 373, 376 (Tex.1987). Whether or not that is true, it makes no difference. The documents expressly release only Consuelo’s bodily injury claims; they do not purport to release any of Octavio’s claims.
Consuelo contends that adding Octavio’s name to the check and release was a counter-offer to additionally release Octavio’s loss of consortium claim. Consuelo argues that the counter-offer is evidence that no agreement was ever made. The majority agrees with Consuelo in part, pointing to Tinning’s September 23 letter in which he states that “[t]he check did not meet our demand since your company improperly tries to add Mr. and Mrs. Balderas to the same $20,000.00 limit .... ” (underline in original). The majority says this evidence raises a fact issue concerning the existence of an agreement. The flaw in the analysis, however, is that when the settlement documents were prepared and delivered to Tinning, the agreement was already in place. *81The parties were at that time attempting to perform an enforceable agreement.
In my view, the check and release containing Octavio’s name were, at worst, a defective attempt at performance. Whatever the perceived merits of adding Octavio’s name to the documents, in truth it did not affect the agreement. Consequently, it was not a material breach of performance that would entitle Consuelo to repudiate the settlement agreement.
Because I believe Harris and USAA established the existence of an enforceable settlement agreement as a matter of law, they are entitled to a judgment. Accordingly, I respectfully dissent.