In The
Court of Appeals
Ninth District of Texas at Beaumont
_________________
NO. 09-16-00337-CV
_________________
CHARLES KIRKWOOD, Appellant
V.
JEFFERSON COUNTY, TEXAS AND W. PROPERTIES, LLC, Appellees
________________________________________________________________________
On Appeal from the 172nd Judicial District Court
Jefferson County, Texas
Trial Cause No. E-194,967
________________________________________________________________________
MEMORANDUM OPINION
This is the second time this case has been before us on interlocutory appeal.
The following is the factual and procedural background of the underlying suit as set
out in Charles Kirkwood v. Jefferson County and W. Properties, LLC, No. 09-15-
00296-CV, 2016 WL 536852, *1 (Tex. App.—Beaumont Feb. 11, 2016, no pet.)
(mem. op):
In January 2010, Jefferson County (the “County”) sued Sara Gleason
to collect unpaid property taxes. In June 2010, the trial court signed a
default judgment against Gleason. The record does not indicate that the
1
County recorded an abstract of judgment in the county real property
records. In August 2010, Gleason sold her property to Charles
Kirkwood by warranty deed, with a notation that the grantee was
responsible for all delinquent taxes. After almost three years, in March
2013, the County posted the property for sheriff’s sale and W.
Properties, LLC purchased the property at the March 2013 tax sale. The
following August, W. Properties, LLC gave Kirkwood notice to vacate
the premises. Kirkwood subsequently filed a petition for bill of review,
in which he argued that he failed to receive notice of the tax sale. In
April 2014, the trial court denied Kirkwood’s petition. In January 2015,
Kirkwood filed a motion for new trial, which the trial court granted.
However, the County filed motions to dismiss for lack of standing and
for lack of jurisdiction. The trial court granted both motions.
In the previous appeal, this Court reversed the trial court’s orders dismissing
Kirkwood’s suit for lack of standing and lack of jurisdiction and remanded the matter
back to the trial court. Id. at *2. In March 2016, after the case was remanded to the
trial court, the County filed a traditional motion for summary judgment asserting that
its evidence proved as a matter of law that Kirkwood had received actual notice of
the intended tax sale before it occurred. The trial court initially denied the motion in
June 2016. The County then filed a motion for the trial court to reconsider. In August
2016, the trial court granted the County’s motion for reconsideration and granted the
motion for summary judgment on the issue of notice, dismissing Kirkwood’s cause
of action without prejudice. In this second appeal, Kirkwood again challenges the
trial court’s order dismissing his cause of action. The County also raises one cross-
issue, arguing that Kirkwood failed to meet his burden to prove that the trial court
2
committed reversible error. We reverse the trial court’s order granting summary
judgment and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
We review a trial court’s grant of a motion for summary judgment de novo.
Buck v. Palmer, 381 S.W.3d 525, 527 (Tex. 2012). A defendant is entitled to
summary judgment if the evidence establishes that there exists no genuine issue of
material fact and that he is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Lear Siegler, Inc.
v. Perez, 819 S.W.2d 470, 471 (Tex. 1991); Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a. In determining
whether a party seeking summary judgment has met that burden, we view the
evidence in the light most favorable to the non-moving party, disregarding all
conflicts in the evidence and taking as true all evidence favorable to the non-moving
party. Valence Operating Co. v. Dorsett, 164 S.W.3d 656, 661 (Tex. 2005); Harwell
v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 896 S.W.2d 170, 173 (Tex. 1995). “Every
reasonable inference must be indulged in favor of the non-movant and any doubts
resolved in [his] favor.” Nixon v. Mr. Prop. Mgmt. Co., 690 S.W.2d 546, 548–49
(Tex. 1985). We consider evidence that supports the position of the moving party
only if such evidence is uncontroverted. Great Am. Reserve Ins. Co. v. San Antonio
Plumbing Supply Co., 391 S.W.2d 41, 47 (Tex. 1965); Procter v. RMC Capital
Corp., 47 S.W.3d 828, 830 (Tex. App.—Beaumont 2001, no pet.).
3
Among the evidence the County submitted in support of its argument to the
trial court that Kirkwood had actual notice of its intent to sell his property was sworn
testimony that the County had (1) mailed letters to Gleason, the previous owner of
the property; (2) published a legal notice bearing the property’s description in a local
newspaper; (3) posted a legal notice bearing the property’s description at the
courthouse; and (4) mailed a letter from a law firm to the address of the property,
addressed to “Occupant.” There was also testimony by a county employee that she
mailed a letter addressed specifically to Kirkwood, although she could produce no
copy of such letter, nor other record of any correspondence bearing Kirkwood’s
name, rather than “Occupant,” nor any certified mail cards bearing his signature.
Finally, the County also submitted affidavits of two county employees indicating
that they had discussed the intended sale in their respective conversations with
Kirkwood when he came into the tax office in January 2013 and made a $2300
payment toward the outstanding back taxes.
On the other hand, the County’s own summary judgment evidence also
included a transcript of Kirkwood’s sworn testimony that, while he knew about the
back taxes owed on the property and was making regular payments on those back
taxes along with his payment of current taxes, he never received actual notice of the
County’s intended sale of his property. The County’s submissions also included
4
evidence that both the County and the law firm representing the County had actual
knowledge, well before the sale, that Kirkwood, and not Gleason, was the owner of
the property and that Kirkwood was the one making regular payments toward the
back taxes. Kirkwood’s testimony also indicates that the law firm representing the
County continued to accept payments from him toward the back taxes without ever
telling him that a tax sale was pending or that the property could be sold even as he
made payments.
In its brief on appeal, the County acknowledges Kirkwood’s sworn testimony
controverting actual notice, but asserts that the testimony is not competent summary
judgment evidence because (a) Kirkwood is an interested witness and (b) his
testimony is controverted by the County’s evidence and is not “otherwise credible
and free from contradictions and inconsistencies, and could have been readily
controverted.” While it is true that the naked testimony of an interested witness is
generally insufficient to support the granting of summary judgment in a moving
party’s favor, it can be sufficient to create a fact issue requiring the denial of
summary judgment. Fieldtech Avionics & Instruments, Inc. v. Component
Control.Com, Inc., 262 S.W.3d 813, 827 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2008, no pet.).
Similarly, while the rules governing summary judgment require that testimonial
evidence of an interested witness be “clear, positive and direct, otherwise credible
5
and free from contradictions and inconsistencies” in order for a summary judgment
to be based on such evidence, there is no such strict requirement for testimonial
evidence used to defeat summary judgment. See Tex. R. Civ. P. 166a(c); Brooks v.
Excellence Mortg., Ltd., 486 S.W.3d 29, 39 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 2015, pet.
denied).
Applying these principals and the required standard of review, when faced
with the County’s evidence and argument that Kirkwood had actual notice of the
sale on one hand, and the controverting evidence that Kirkwood never actually
received any notice despite the County’s actual knowledge of his ownership on the
other, this Court is required to resolve any factual conflicts in Kirkwood’s favor by
disregarding the evidence supporting the County’s position and taking the evidence
supporting Kirkwood’s position as true. Dorsett, 164 S.W.3d at 661; Great Am.
Reserve Ins. Co., 391 S.W.2d at 47. The result of that analysis is the existence of a
genuine issue of material fact as to the issue of notice, the specific basis upon which
the trial court granted summary judgment in the County’s favor. Therefore, we must
sustain Kirkwood’s challenge to the trial court’s order dismissing his cause of action.
In one related counter-issue on appeal, the County argues that Rule 44.1 of
the Rules of Appellate Procedure prohibits this Court from reversing the trial court’s
order granting summary judgment. Rule 44.1 provides that
6
[n]o judgment may be reversed on appeal on the ground that the trial
court made an error of law unless the court of appeals concludes that
the error complained of: (1) probably caused the rendition of an
improper judgment; or (2) probably prevented the appellant from
properly presenting the case to the court of appeals.
Tex. R. App. P. 44.1(a). Because our finding on Kirkwood’s challenge is a
dispositive finding that the trial court did render an improper judgment, Rule 44.1
does not prohibit this Court from reversing the trial court’s order.
We also disagree with the County’s argument that the trial court’s order must
be upheld on the ground that Kirkwood failed to show that the trial court abused its
discretion because “there is at least some evidence” to support the trial court’s order.
This argument wholly ignores that, as the moving party, the County bore the burden
of presenting not “some evidence,” but evidence sufficient to negate the existence
of any genuine issue of material fact. See Lear Siegler, 819 S.W.2d at 471. As we
have described herein, the standard under which a trial court’s grant of summary
judgment is reviewed is well established as de novo, not abuse of discretion. See
Nixon, 690 S.W.2d at 548–49 (noting that “[t]he standards for reviewing a motion
for summary judgment are well established” by the Texas Supreme Court). The trial
court’s duty in a summary judgment proceeding is not to weigh the evidence
presented or determine its credibility, but rather to simply determine whether any
genuine issue of material fact exists in light of the clear mandates of how evidence
7
must be viewed in such a summary proceeding. Cummins v. Travis Cty. Water
Control & Improvement Dist. No. 17, 175 S.W.3d 34, 53 (Tex. App.—Austin 2005,
pet. denied). We therefore overrule the County’s issue and, having sustained
Kirkwood’s issue, reverse the trial court’s order granting the County’s motion for
summary judgment, and remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
______________________________
CHARLES KREGER
Justice
Submitted on June 15, 2017
Opinion Delivered September 28, 2017
Before McKeithen, C.J., Kreger and Johnson, JJ.
8