Court Opinion

ID: 9653152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 17:39:48.651291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:56.650840
License: Public Domain

GONZALEZ, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. This case demonstrates how far we have strayed from the Legislature’s intent of protecting the uneducated, the unsophisticated and the poor against false, misleading and deceptive practices. I cannot believe that the Legislature ever intended for the Deceptive Trade Practices Act to be used to bail out an attorney who does not inspect the used house he purchases even though he had actual notice, prior to closing, that the city had condemned the property. I would affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
Dennis Weitzel is an attorney. He wrote a contract for the purchase of the renovated house. The Residential Earnest Money Contract provided that:
VII.
PROPERTY CONDITION: Buyer requires inspections and repairs required by the Property Condition Addendum (the Addendum) and any lender. Upon Seller’s receipt of all loan approvals and inspection reports, Seller shall commence and complete prior to closing all required repairs at Seller’s expense. All inspections, reports and repairs required of Seller by this contract and the Addendum shall not exceed $1,000. If Seller fails to complete such requirements, Buyer may do so and Seller shall be liable up to the amount specified and the same paid from the proceeds of the sale. If such expenditures exceed the stated amount and Seller refuses to pay such excess, Buyer may pay the additional cost or accept the property with the *602limited repairs and this sale shall be closed as scheduled, or Buyer may terminate this contract and the earnest money shall be refunded to Buyer. (emphasis added).
XIX.
AGREEMENT OP PARTIES: This contract contains the entire agreement of the parties and cannot be changed except by the written consent of all parties hereto.
PROPERTY CONDITION ADDENDUM
II.
CONDITION OF PROPERTY: Buyer shall have the right at Buyer’s expense (i) within twenty (20) days from the effective date of this contract to have any of the structural items indicated below, and (ii) within twenty (20) days from the effective date of this contract to have any of the equipment systems items indicated below, inspected by inspectors of Buyer’s choice and to give Seller within such time periods a written report of required repairs to any of the items checked below which are not performing the function for which intended or which are in need of immediate repair. Failure to do so shall be deemed a waiver of Buyer’s inspection and repair rights and Buyer agrees to accept property in its present condition, subject to the right of Buyer to make the above-named inspections within twenty (20) days after the completion of all repairs and improvements upon the property by the Seller, (emphasis added).
After signing the contract, the Weitzels attempted to move into the house prior to closing and discovered a “condemned” notice on the house. In spite of this notice, the Weitzels still did not have the house inspected. Instead, they moved in and called the city, but were told that the city could only discuss the matter with the owner, Mr. Segraves. Upon calling Mr. Seg-raves, Weitzel was told that the house met the Fort Worth code standards. Weitzel did not pursue the matter further. A few weeks later, the Weitzels sued the sellers on alleged oral misrepresentations that the house complied with the city’s code standards.
The question I must ask the court is: How can misrepresentations be a producing cause of a consumer’s actual damages in the absence of reliance on those representations by the consumer? Tex.Bus. & Comm.Code Ann. § 17.50(a) provides that a consumer may maintain an action when
(1) there is proof of a deceptive act or practice under § 17.46(b)
(2) which is a producing cause of the consumer’s actual damages, (emphasis added). .
Producing cause is not defined in the statute. It is a common statutory construction rule that if the Legislature does not define a term, its ordinary meaning will be applied. Satterfield v. Satterfield, 448 S.W.2d 456 (Tex.1969). Producing cause is “an efficient, exciting, or contributing cause, which, in natural sequence, produced the injuries or damages complained of, if any.” Rourke v. Garza, 530 S.W.2d 794, 801 (Tex.1975); see also Black’s Law Dictionary (5th ed. 1977). To produce, among other things, means to accomplish, achieve, bring about, bring forth, bring to pass, or bring into existence. Burton, Legal Thesaurus 411 (1980). In light of these definitions and these facts, reliance on the deceptive act or conduct is necessarily a factor of producing cause.
“A misrepresentation cannot theoretically be producing cause of injury if it was not at all relied upon.” E. Elias, The DTPA: The All-Encompassing Buyer Remedy in Texas, 43 Texas Bar J. 745, 754, at note 49 (1980). This is a fundamental theoretical tenet that cannot be easily brushed aside. Reliance is evidence of producing cause. See D. Bragg, P. Maxwell & J. Longley, Texas Consumer Litigation, § 8.08 (2d ed. 1983).
I agree with the court that reliance is not an express element of a cause of action under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act. *603The Legislature did, however, require that some causal connection be established by the plaintiff prior to recovery under the Act. The court’s opinion ignores this requirement.
The court’s opinion is more disturbing for what it does not say than for any pronouncements it contains. The court states that it “feels obliged to address the subject” raised by dicta in the court of appeals’ opinion. Yet the dicta in the court’s opinion inadequately lives up to this self-imposed obligation. For instance, the opinion does not say whether reliance is a proper component of producing cause when representations are at issue. It does not say how the Weitzels established producing cause in this case, and what evidence existed to support such a proposition. It does not say how the bench and bar is to be guided in the future when faced with the burden to prove or disprove producing cause.
I lament the fact that the court’s opinion glosses over proof of producing cause. Yet, some type of proof is required, under some type of definable standard. It should not be that any misrepresentation made in a vacuum, or made under circumstances that clearly showed its falsity and prevented reliance thereupon, would support a cause of action under the Act. This is necessarily true because the Legislature drew a statute requiring some type of causal connection between the deceptive act or practice and the actual damages suffered.
Yet, the court’s opinion offers no guidance as to what is required to prove producing cause. In this case, and in other cases involving misrepresentations, what other proof could there be except reliance? Indeed, the court ignores this facet of the question presented on appeal, and allows an attorney cognizant of all facts at the time of closing to lure his vendors into a snare, swiftly draw it tight around them, and recover treble damages.
In summary, it is absurd to allow a consumer to recover treble damages for a misrepresentation if that misrepresentation did not induce the consumer to enter into the contract. Since there is no evidence of producing cause in this case, I would render a judgment that the Weitzels take nothing.
McGEE, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.