Court Opinion

ID: 9690413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 19:11:31.466529+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:56.770184
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON REHEARING
Amoco and Exxon Mobil filed a motion for rehearing contending this Court should also remand this case for determining whether the trial court should award Amoco and Exxon Mobil their attorney’s fees. A trial court may award costs and reasonable and necessary attorney’s fees in a declaratory judgment action to the extent that the trial court, in its discretion, determines such an award is equitable and just. Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 37.009 (Vernon 1997); Utley v. Marathon Oil Co., 31 S.W.3d 274 (Tex.App.-Waco 2000, no pet.). Wood opposes any award of attorney’s fees on the ground that Amoco and Exxon Mobil failed to specifically request such relief in their motion for summary judgment or in their amended motion for partial summary judgment.
In the trial court, Amoco and Exxon Mobil’s third-party defendants’ original answer contained a request for attorney’s fees should the companies prevail. Amoco *468and Exxon Mobil’s answer to Wood’s amended original petition for declaratory judgment also contained a counterclaim against Wood for attorney’s fees. The companies’ motion for summary judgment, however, did not specifically request an award of attorney’s fees in conjunction with an award of summary judgment. Nor did the companies’ amended motion for partial summary judgment specifically request the award of attorney’s fees.
The trial court’s notice of the hearing on the motions for summary judgment did not include the notice that it would consider the issue of attorney’s fees. The record before us suggests that, when the trial court considered the parties’ competing motions for summary judgment, the court had before it no evidence regarding the attorney’s fees from either side. What constitutes reasonable attorney’s fees is a question of fact. Merch. Ctr., Inc. v. WNS, Inc., 85 S.W.3d 389, 397 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 2002, no pet.). Thus, even assuming the trial court had properly awarded summary judgment in favor of Amoco and Exxon Mobil, the court was not in a position, at that juncture of the proceedings, to award attorney’s fees, if any, that it found to be “equitable and just.” An additional hearing, complete with advance notice and the receipt of evidence, would have been required as a matter of course.
Given the procedural posture of the trial court at the time it considered the competing motions for summary judgment, and understanding that we have rendered judgment in favor of Amoco and Exxon Mobil, we grant Amoco and Exxon Mobil’s motion for rehearing and remand this case to the trial court for the sole purpose of resolving Amoco and Exxon Mobil’s claim for attorney’s fees.