Court Opinion

ID: 9771391
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:41:46.486106+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:29.944533
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent. We should reverse and render for Jeannine Strickland, the appellant.
Strickland, the owner of Aid Bail Bonds, often arranged bail for clients of Coleman, who is an attorney. In September of 1981, Coleman asked her to make a bond of $10,-000 for Garcia, a Mexican national charged with murder. Because Strickland considered the bond risky, she was reluctant to make the bond. Strickland testified she *194agreed to post the bail only after Coleman executed a promissory note for the full bond amount of $10,000, which was introduced as Exhibit 1. She testified that if Coleman had refused to sign the note for the full liability, she would not have made bond on Garcia. Later, after Garcia did not appear for a court date, the bond was forfeited, and Strickland made a demand on Coleman on the note. Coleman refused to pay the note, and Strickland filed suit.
Coleman admitted he did not read the note before he signed it. Coleman testified that he regularly shared liability with Strickland on bonds. Yet, the only other bond on which he shared liability was for P. Roberts, for $30,000, which was Exhibit 5. When Strickland sent that promissory note to him, Coleman wrote in “one half of $30,000” next to his signature. Coleman testified that he did not share liability with Strickland on every bond over $1,000, but on some he did. Coleman testified that he called Glen Strickland, her son, before he signed the note in the present case, and Glen told him not to worry about it, that their arrangement was always just half. Glen Strickland denied having such a conversation with Coleman.
Glen Strickland, the son of Jeannine Strickland, is no longer employed by his mother. He testified he was not an owner of the bonding company, was not a manager, and his mother had the ultimate authority. Whenever there was an important decision to make, he said he deferred to his mother. On occasion, he testified, they would share liability with Coleman on the bond. The only bond that he could recall sharing liability was the $30,000 bond on P. Roberts, Exhibit 5. Before signing that note, Coleman added the notation that he was liable for only one-half.
The trial court and the majority are persuaded that Coleman’s testimony that he assumed there would be shared liability on the note as on another bond, is enough to relieve him of the liability on this note. If this rule of law is adopted, no promissory note is safe from challenge, no matter how flimsy the testimony.
The majority focuses on Coleman’s testimony that he always shared liability when he split the fee from the client. Even if Coleman shared liability when he split his fee from the client, it cannot help him avoid liability on a promissory note. The majority says “There were promissory notes and bonds regarding other clients which reflected Coleman’s one-half liability on the bonds in the event of forfeiture.” The only other promissory notes in this record are Exhibits 6, 7, and 8. When those notes were introduced by Coleman he did not say he shared liability on them. He merely identified them as notes he signed and said they were similar to the one in this lawsuit. The only promissory note in this record on which he shared liability was one that he noted “½” next to his signature. That would not relieve him of liability here, but would in fact support liability against him.
This case can be resolved by reading one case: Town North Nat’l Bank v. Broaddus, 569 S.W.2d 489, 494 (Tex.1978). In Broaddus, the supreme court held that a maker who attempts to avoid the consequences of a promissory note must prove: (1) the payee represented he would not be liable; and (2) the payee by fraud, that rises to the level of trickery, artifice, or device, induced the payee to sign the promissory note. Here, we only have Coleman’s contradicted statement that Strickland’s agent told him he would only be liable for one-half the note, and Coleman’s general assumption that he would not be liable for the full amount. In Broaddus, the maker of the note claimed that the agent of the bank told him that the other co-maker would have sole responsibility on the note, and that the bank would not look to either of them for repayment. Id. at 490-91. The supreme court held the allegations of the maker, even if true, did not constitute fraud in the inducement. Id. at 491; see also Friday v. Grant Plaza Huntsville Assoc., 713 S.W.2d 755, 756 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 196, no writ). Here, we have no extrinsic evidence of fraud in the inducement that rises to the level of trickery, artifice, or device employed by the payee.
*195I would sustain the legal and factual sufficiency points of error challenging the above findings and render judgment for Strickland in the full amount of the note.