Court Opinion

ID: 9771791
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:53:30.600013+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:36.776794
License: Public Domain

SPEARS, Justice
concurring.
I concur in the court’s judgment. I agree the District bore the burden of proving that Coulson failed to perform the contract in a good and workmanlike manner, and that establishing Coulson’s engineering services were performed in a good and workmanlike manner was not a condition precedent to Coulson’s recovery under the express terms of the contract.
By raising an affirmative defense to Coulson’s contract recovery claim — failure of consideration in general, breach of an implied warranty of good and workmanlike manner in particular — -the District was entitled to a special issue on that defense by adducing evidence on the point. The trial court failed to submit such an issue. The District did dictate its objections to the court’s omission; however, since the burden of proof was upon the District, it was required to request a special issue in writing to preserve error. Lyles v. T.E.I.A., 405 S.W.2d 725, 727 (Tex.Civ.App.—Waco 1966, writ ref’d n.r.e.); see also TEX. R. CIV. PROC. 273, 276 & 279. Having failed to request an issue on its affirmative defense, the District failed to preserve error.
It is noteworthy that Special Issue No. 6 did not embrace the District’s affirmative defense. Special Issue No. 6 asked:
Do you find from a preponderance of the evidence that during the time in question Coulson and Associates Engineers, Inc., was negligent in failing, if it did, to furnish adequate plans and specifications to obtain reasonable competitive bid prices for the construction work on the water system, sanitary sewer system and drainage system for Lake L.B.J. Municipal Utility District, proximately causing higher costs for such construction to the district?
ANSWER: No.
Negligence, even when defined as here as the “failure to do that which a registered engineer of ordinary prudence engaged in designing [such projects] would have done under the same or similar circumstances does not necessarily encompass a breach of the implied warranty of good and workmanlike manner. An engineer could exercise due care, ordinary prudence, and perform reasonably but, through mistake *653or ignorance, still render unskilled or shoddy services. Thus, the court unnecessarily and incorrectly states that there is no difference between the failure to provide good and workmanlike services and the negligent performance of professional services. Moreover, Special Issue No. 6 applies to the District’s negligence counterclaim and not its separate and distinct affirmative defense of failure to perform in a good and workmanlike manner. The District would be entitled to such an issue upon proper submission to the trial court.
RAY, J., joins in this concurring opinion.