Opinion

Gaines v. Hamman

  • 163 Tex. 618
  • 5 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 424
  • 358 S.W.2d 557
  • 17 Oil & Gas Rep. 52
  • 1962 Tex. LEXIS 764
Court
Texas Supreme Court
Filed
Jun 13, 1962
Status
Published
Author
Smith
On the bench
Griffin, Norvell, Smith, Walker
Cited by
309 cases
Authority
More cited than 10.5%

concluding there was a fact issue whether a confidential relationship existed and a constructive trust should be imposed when one party to a series of agreements to acquire oil and gas interests used information from those earlier agreements to obtain an interest for himself

How later courts described this case

  • concluding there was a fact issue whether a confidential relationship existed and a constructive trust should be imposed when one party to a series of agreements to acquire oil and gas interests used information from those earlier agreements to obtain an interest for himself
  • holding that summary judgment motion under Rule 166a(c
  • “If conflicting inferences may be drawn from the deposition and from the affidavit of the same party, a fact issue is presented. It is not the purpose of the summary judgment rule to provide either a trial by deposition or a trial by affidavit, but rather to provide a method of summarily terminating a case when it clearly appears that only a question of law is involved and that there is no genuine issue of fact.”
  • “It is not the purpose of the summary judgment rule to provide either a trial by deposition or a trial by affidavit, but rather to provide a method of summarily terminating a case when it clearly appears that only a question of law is involved . . . .”

Written by the judges who cited it.

The opinion

ASSOCIATE JUSTICE SMITH,

concurring.

*627 I concur in the result reached by the majority only because, in my opinion, there is evidence of probative force other than the evidence which has been rendered ineffective by the Texas Trust Act, Article 7425b, which raises a genuine issue of fact as to whether a fiduciary relationship, a relation of trust and confidence, existed between Gaines and Hamman. The facts in this case meet the test contained in my dissent in Omohundro v. Matthews, 161 Texas 367 , 341 S.W. 2d 401 . Therefore, the case should have been determined by the trier of the facts and the trial court erred in granting Hamman’s motion for summary judgment.

Opinion delivered June 13, 1962.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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