A staffing company’s challenges of a summary judgment against it fell short in the Court of Appeals for the First District of Texas on Aug. 13.
Vertex Services LLC sued Oceanwide Houston Inc., Oceanwide Texas Inc and Oceanwide America Inc for tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective business relations, common-law misappropriation and civil conspiracy. It accused the defendants of “’stealing’ the labor force it ‘spent a considerable amount of money and time’ training to fulfill its obligations” under an agreement.
Vertex said Oceanwide “poached” the foreign workers Vertex hired and trained for a contract with TETRA Applied Technologies LLC. Oceanwide responded to the suit with a request for no-evidence and traditional summary judgment, which the court granted.
Justice Gordon Goodman
At the heart of Vertex's lawsuit lies the assertion that the workers the company trained constitute a commodity that can be misappropriated. The lower court disagreed, and the appeals court concurred, saying it could find no precedent for considering workers as marketable commodities and therefore subject to misappropriation.
In its appeal of the summary judgment, Vertex objected to the lower court's assertion that if the misappropriation claim falls short, then all of the claims should fall short, since it’s the basis of the lawsuit.
But, the appeals court said, “the challenged statement does not supplant the trial court’s statement that Oceanwide’s motion is granted ‘on all grounds stated therein.’ Further, conclusions of law are not appropriate under summary judgment procedure because ‘if summary judgment is proper, there are no facts to find, and the legal conclusions have already been stated in the. motion and response,’” according to the opinion.
Vertex said the lower court didn’t acknowledge that misappropriation conceals the unfair business that Oceanwide practiced. The court determined that in this case, workers are not able to be misappropriated.
Vertex also appeal on the tortious interference with contract, saying the motion was concerning the wrong contract and that there’s evidence to back its claims. The court agreed and noted that Oceanwide also referenced the wrong contract.
But, the appeals court said, the tortious interference with the wrong contract “would serve no purpose here.”
“Because Vertex has failed to challenge the only grounds on which the trial court rendered summary judgment on Vertex’s tortious interference with prospective business relations claim, we affirm the judgment of the trial court,” the appeals court ruled.
Considering this ruling, the appeals court also determined the conspiracy claim fell short.
Justice Peter Kelly ruled on the case; justices Evelyn Keyes and Gordon Goodman concurred.