Court Opinion

ID: 9621143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 05:52:11.625877+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:04:58.255881
License: Public Domain

ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
By our opinion of March 1, 2004, we reversed the judgment of the trial court awarding Lilith Brainard, Sally Brainard Wicker, E. Swasey Brainard, II, Amy Brainard, Berklee Brainard Clements, Sena Brainard, and the Estate of Edward H. Brainard, II attorney’s fees in the amount of $100,000, rendered judgment that no attorney’s fees be awarded, and in all other respects affirmed the judgment of the trial court denying the Brainards any recovery for prejudgment interest.
Having considered the Brainards’ motion for rehearing, the motion for rehearing is overruled for the reasons stated in the March 1, 2004 opinion, together with *514the reasons set out by Justice Quinn in his opinion on rehearing.
QUINN, J., concurring.
BRIAN QUINN, Justice.
I write separately to address that aspect of the Brainards’ motion for rehearing that deals with the award of prejudgment interest. My interpretation of the record leads me to conclude that the situation before us likens to that in Henson v. Southern Farm Bureau Cas. Ins. Co., 17 S.W.3d 652 (Tex.2000) as opposed to that in Menix v. Allstate Indem. Co., 83 S.W.3d 877 (Tex.App.-Eastland 2002, pet. denied). In the former, the complainant sought prejudgement interest arising from the supposed breach of contract committed by Texas Farm Bureau, the company that issued the uninsured or under-insured policy. The Supreme Court held that such could not be recovered as part of damages against Texas Farm Bureau because it was not obligated to pay any benefit until judgment was entered against the under-insured tortfeasor. Henson v. Southern Farm Bureau Cas. Ins., 17 S.W.3d at 654. The same was not true in Menix, however. There, prejudgment interest was not sought as part of the recovery due as a result of any breach by Allstate but as part of the damages committed by Swed-lund, the under-insured tortfeasor. And, because Allstate agreed, per its insurance policy, to pay Menix “ ‘the damages which a covered person is legally entitled to recover from the owner or operator of an uninsured/underinsured motor vehicle because of bodily injuries,’ ” it had to pay prejudgment interest that accrued upon the damages caused by Swedlund’s conduct as part of its contractual liability.
Thus, in comparing Henson and Menix, it is imperative to first determine whether prejudgment interest is being sought from the insurer as damages resulting from the insurer’s own purported breach of contract or as part of the damages caused by the uninsured or under-insured tortfeasor. And, given my reading of the Brainards’ live pleading, it appears as though prejudgment interest was sought as damages arising from the purported contractual and statutory breaches committed by Trinity Universal Insurance Co., not as a part of the damages caused by the under-insured’s tort. Therefore, because Menix is inapplicable while Henson is not, I vote to overrule the motion for rehearing.