Court Opinion

ID: 9681711
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:55:11.749498+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:34.982518
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
In our original opinion we inadvertently overlooked that portion of Utilities’ ease against Authority and the City of Pasadena concerning conspiracy on the part of those two defendants to interfere with the July 11, 1966 contract between Utilities and Authority. Pasadena’s and Authority’s motions for rehearing are granted to correct this oversight.
In its first supplemental amended petition Utilities alleged
[tjhat the City of Pasadena wilfully and maliciously conspired with Clear Lake City Water Authority to deprive Plaintiff of the benefits of the above-described contract [July 11, 1966] by persuading Clear Lake City Water Authority to breach the contract; and that during the months preceding the making of the contracts between Clear Lake City Water Authority and the City of Pasadena [January 3,1972] those two defendant parties had various conferences in which they conspired to have Clear Lake City Water Authority breach its contract with Plaintiff. . . .
Utilities prayed for actual and exemplary damages on this cause of action.
This portion of the suit being separate and severable from the suit for declaratory judgment, it is governed by Rule 39 of the Texas Rules of Civil Procedure, and the trial court did have jurisdiction to render judgment.
In its findings of fact and conclusions of law the trial court held:
12. That there has been no unlawful interference with any contractual relationship that may exist between Clear Lake Apartments, Inc., Clear Lake Utilities Co., and Clear Lake City Water Authority by reason of the contract between the City of Pasadena and Clear Lake City Water Authority dated January 3, 1972.
16. That Clear Lake Utilities Co. is entitled to no money damages, either actual or punitive, from Clear Lake City Water Authority or the City of Pasadena.
By these findings the trial court held that Utilities had failed to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that there had been any unlawful interference. Without determining the validity of the July, 1966, contract, we affirm that ruling. Utilities may not maintain a cause of action for conspiracy to interfere with its contractual rights unless there has actually been a breach of contract. Kingsbery v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 315 S.W.2d 561, 576 (Tex.Civ.App.-Austin 1958, writ ref’d n. r. e.).
The contract between Utilities and Authority provides that, as between Utilities and Authority, Utilities shall have the exclusive right to furnish water and sewer service to the parties within the 100-acre tract involved. It does not attempt to govern, as between the City of Pasadena and Utilities, who shall provide such service; *55nor does it attempt to govern services provided by Authority to the City of Pasadena. The contract between Pasadena and Authority states only that Authority will provide services to the City of Pasadena; Authority’s customer under that contract is not “the parties within said tract”, but is the City of Pasadena. Arrangements between the City of Pasadena and the parties within the 100-acre tract are not governed by either of these contracts. The January 3,1972 contract cannot therefore be held, as a matter of law, to be in violation of the July 11,1966 contract and has not necessarily brought about any breach of that agreement.
Utilities’ cause of action against Authority and the City of Pasadena for conspiracy and tortious interference with its contractual relations is severed, and the judgment of the trial court as to that cause of action is affirmed. The holdings in our previous opinion remain undisturbed. The judgment of the trial court in the portion of the suit for declaratory judgment between Clear Lake Utilities, Co. and Clear Lake Apartments, Inc. is reversed, and judgment is here rendered that the November 21, 1967 contract granting Utilities the exclusive right to furnish water and sewer service to the property owned by North Clear Lake Development Corporation did not create any obligation now binding on Clear Lake Apartments, Inc. The portion of the suit between Clear Lake Utilities Co. and Clear Lake City Water Authority for a declaratory judgment to interpret and determine the validity of the July 11, 1966 contract between those parties is reversed and remanded, with instructions that if the indispensable parties are not joined within a reasonable time, that suit is to be dismissed.
Affirmed in part; reversed and rendered in part; reversed and remanded in part.