Background
Masha Davis sought approval from the Davis Spring Property Owners’ Association’s Architectural Review Committee to build an accessory structure in her backyard. The committee denied the application because the structure was allegedly too tall and extended above the roofline. Davis sued the association and its board president, Amanda Mock, asserting that neither the recorded declaration nor the applicable design guidelines imposed the cited height restriction.
The district court declared that the committee lacked authority to deny the application on that basis and that no restrictive covenant prohibited Davis from constructing the proposed structure. Other claims, including breach-of-fiduciary-duty and fair-housing claims, were dismissed, and Davis nonsuited her remaining claims. After a hearing, the court awarded Davis $100,000 in attorney’s fees under Texas Property Code Section 5.006, plus contingent appellate fees.
The Court’s Holding
The Third Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that the POA failed to preserve its argument that Section 5.006 did not authorize fees because Davis had not alleged or established a breach of a restrictive covenant. The POA did not raise that objection in its response to Davis’s summary-judgment motion, at the fee hearing, or in a motion for new trial.
The court also rejected the POA’s fee-segregation challenge. The POA inadequately briefed the issue, and the evidence independently supported the award. Davis’s attorney supplied billing records, testified that the claims were inextricably intertwined, and estimated that only 5% to 10% of the work was unrelated to restrictive-covenant enforcement. Because the POA requested no findings of fact or conclusions of law, the appellate court implied findings supporting the judgment and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by awarding roughly $50,000 less than Davis requested.
Key Takeaways
- A party must timely challenge statutory entitlement to attorney’s fees in the trial court to preserve the issue for appeal.
- Fee segregation may be established through testimony estimating the percentage attributable to recoverable or unrecoverable claims; exact time entries for each claim are not always required.
- When no findings of fact or conclusions of law are requested, an appellate court may imply findings necessary to support the trial court’s fee award if the record contains sufficient evidence.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that objections to both the legal basis and amount of an attorney-fee award must be developed in the trial court and adequately briefed on appeal. A party cannot wait until appeal to dispute statutory entitlement, and a conclusory segregation argument is unlikely to overcome billing records and testimony showing that recoverable and unrecoverable claims shared common legal work.