Unreported / Non-Citable
Background
Lincoln Lee Lankford alleged that Gregory Kevin Cline and two other men severely beat him in May 2020 as part of a planned attack. Lankford asserted claims including assault and battery, civil conspiracy, theft, aiding and abetting, and vicarious liability.
Cline moved for no-evidence summary judgment, principally challenging the conspiracy and theft claims. The trial court sustained Cline’s objections to the affidavits and judgment of conviction that Lankford submitted, struck those exhibits, granted summary judgment for Cline, and severed the judgment for appeal.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Court of Appeals reversed as to assault because Cline’s no-evidence motion did not specifically challenge that claim or identify its elements as lacking evidence. The trial court therefore could not grant summary judgment on assault, and that claim was remanded.
The court affirmed summary judgment on civil conspiracy. Under prior panel decisions of the Ninth Court of Appeals, Lankford failed to preserve his challenge to the exclusion of his exhibits because he did not object to the trial court’s ruling or otherwise present his admissibility arguments below. With the exhibits excluded, no evidence remained to defeat Cline’s no-evidence motion on conspiracy. The court also affirmed the judgment on theft and the other claims Lankford did not brief on appeal.
Justice Chambers concurred in the result but criticized the court’s preservation rule. He explained that stare decisis required the panel to follow the Ninth Court’s prior panel decisions, while arguing that a party should not have to object to a ruling sustaining an opponent’s evidentiary objection.
Key Takeaways
- A Texas no-evidence summary-judgment motion must specifically identify the challenged claim elements.
- The trial court cannot dispose of an assault claim that the motion did not adequately challenge.
- Under the Ninth Court’s existing panel precedent, a party must preserve complaints about the exclusion of summary-judgment evidence in the trial court.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces the claim-by-claim specificity required in Texas no-evidence motions: broadly worded assertions made while discussing another theory will not necessarily support judgment on an independently pleaded claim.
It also highlights an acknowledged split among Texas appellate courts over what a party must do to preserve review of an order striking summary-judgment evidence. Until the Ninth Court sitting en banc or the Supreme Court of Texas changes the rule, litigants in that court should expressly present their grounds for admitting challenged evidence and preserve any complaint about an adverse ruling.