Court Opinion

ID: 9641261
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:26:46.574009+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:36.171326
License: Public Domain

RICHARD H. EDELMAN, Justice,
concurring.
It is well established that: (1) we review a summary judgment de novo; and (2) (although not applicable to this case) when both parties move for summary judgment on the same issues, and the trial court grants one motion and denies the other, the reviewing court considers the summary judgment evidence presented by both sides, determines all questions presented, and if the reviewing court determines that the trial court erred, renders the judgment the trial court should have rendered. See, e.g., Valence Operating Co. v. Dorsett, 164 S.W.3d 656, 661 (Tex.2005).
However, what if an appellant fails to assert on appeal a valid ground for reversing the summary judgment? It is also well established that a summary judgment may not be reversed on a ground of error not asserted in the appellant’s brief.1 Yet, taken in the most literal sense, the standards recited in the preceding paragraph would suggest that an appeals court not only may conduct a de novo review and reverse based on that ground, but is arguably obligated to do so (despite that it would require a court to abandon its position of impartiality); otherwise, what is meant by framing the standard as a de novo review?
This case embodies that apparent conflict in that the concurring and dissenting opinion advocates reversing Hearthwood’s summary judgment based on a lack of specificity in its motion for summary judgment that was not raised in appellants’ brief.2 Until this uncertainty is resolved, *163appeals courts will seemingly remain at liberty to treat similarly situated litigants differently, producing a lack of uniformity in the law, and, thus, on this aspect, no real law at all.

. See, e.g., Jacobs v. Satterwhite, 65 S.W.3d 653, 655-56 (Tex.2001); Bonham State Bank v. Beadle, 907 S.W.2d 465, 470 (Tex.1995); Vawter v. Garvey, 786 S.W.2d 263, 264 (Tex.1990); San Jacinto River Auth. v. Duke, 783 S.W.2d 209, 209 (Tex.1990); Central Educ. Agency v. Burke, 711 S.W.2d 7, 9 (Tex.1986).

. To elude the unassigned error constraint with regard to a no-evidence motion for summary judgment, an appeals court might take the position that the motion's failure to fulfill the specificity requirements for such a motion transforms it into a traditional motion and then reverse it for its failure to sustain the higher standard of proof applicable thereto.