Court Opinion

ID: 9642070
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:47:44.590482+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:42.701905
License: Public Domain

MASSEY, Chief Justice,
concurring.
I concur in the result reached by the majority, but am moved to protest the application of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act to a situation which in earlier times would have fallen exclusively within the realm of tortious breach of an existent contract. See 10 Am.Jur.2d p. 547, Banks, sec. 576, “(Damages)-Amount; particular elements of damages recoverable.” (1963).
It appears that there now is no occasion to distinguish causes of action for fraudulent inducement to enter upon a contract from those for tortious breach of contracts already in existence. Either wrong will probably fit into the character of cases for *328which the Legislature has seen fit to provide damages under the Deceptive Trade Practices Act.
It is not merely the doctrine of caveat emptor which has ceased to be. Because of what is now to be treated a “consumer” under the Act a bank in which a customer has maintained an account for over thirty years (presumably begun by the bank in contemplation of then existing laws which established appropriate damages for which it might be liable for a failure in respect to some duty owed the customer) might very well find itself bound by contract to one with which it would never have contracted in the first place had there been opportunity to know that the law would change so as to multiply by three (3) times the damage exposure in the event of the same failure, should it amount to a breach of contract a jury might deem tortious.
In some situations courts are obliged to yield what might be their concept of justice and to apply laws as prescribed by statute in contradiction of rules of common law, i. e., in contradiction of the supposed cumulative wisdom of American and English judges for hundreds of years. I consider the present case to be one of these. This court has ruled in obedience to its obligation to order a statute upheld.