BEAUMONT — An appellate court overruled one issue and affirmed Judge Mitch Templeton's decision regarding a motion to dismiss a complaint against Fluor Enterprises.
Justice Leanne Johnson authored the April 30 opinion. Justice Charles Kreger and Hollis Horton concurred with her.
"We cannot say the trial court acted arbitrarily or unreasonably or failed to analyze or apply the law correctly in denying Fluor Enterprises’s motion to dismiss," Johnson wrote. "We overrule issue one. Because we have overruled issue one, we do not address issue two."
Jared Maricelli and Marci Nichole Maricelli filed a lawsuit against Fluor Enterprises, AMEC Foster Wheeler USA Corporation, Triple "S" Industrial Corporation and Wyatt Field Service Company. They alleged that Jared Maricelli sustained injuries when a threaded pipe connection unexpectedly rotated and struck his body.
The Maricellis argued the unit was designed and manufactured defectively. Fluor Enterprises filed a motion to dismiss the complaint because the certificate of merit that was filed did not reference Fluor Enterprises by name.
Fluor also argued that the error could not be cured by amendment, and that, because of that, the Maricellis' claims against Fluor should be dismissed.
The Maricellis argued that their claims were not frivolous and that the certificate of merit was sufficient because it named Fluor Corporation, a related entity.
After hearing the motion to dismiss, the trial court denied Fluor's motion, so Fluor then filed an interlocutory appeal.
"According to the record before us, the petition named Fluor Enterprises, Inc., as a defendant but the certificate of merit mistakenly referenced Fluor Corporation," Johnson wrote. "Appellees acknowledge that they are unable to cite to any authority in support of their argument that misnomer is applicable in the present context, and we are unaware of any caselaw that would support the application of the misnomer doctrine to the certificate of merit statute."
The appeals court affirmed Judge Templeton's order.
Judge Templeton presides over the 172nd District Court in Jefferson County.
Texas Ninth District Court of Appeals case number: 09-19-00121-CV