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JCW Electronics10/13/2005
Before Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Hinojosa and Castillo
Appellant, JCW Electronics, Inc. ("JCW"), appeals from the trial court's judgment in a personal injury suit. After the suicide death of Rolando Domingo Montez while in custody in the Port Isabel City Jail, appellees, Pearl Iriz Garza, individually and on behalf of the Estate of Rolando Domingo Montez, Deceased, and Belinda Leigh Camacho, individually and as next friend of Rolando Kadric Montez, a minor child, filed suit against JCW, alleging negligence, breach of express and implied warranties, strict liability, and misrepresentation. The case was tried to a jury, which found in favor of appellees on questions of negligence, misrepresentation, and breach of implied warranty of fitness. The jury found damages for Garza and the minor child, but found no damages for Camacho in her individual capacity.
After the jury verdict, appellees filed a motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict, asking the trial court to disregard certain inconsistent jury answers and render judgment against JCW for breach of contract and fraud. The trial court granted the motion and rendered judgment as requested by appellees. The trial court also rendered judgment for the damages found by the jury and awarded appellees their attorneys' fees, guardian ad litem fees, and costs. This appeal ensued. JCW challenges the trial court's judgment by eight issues; appellees raise one cross-issue. We modify the judgment, and as modified, affirm.
A. FACTUAL BACKGROUND
In early 1998, JCW and the City of Port Isabel executed a contract under which JCW was to provide telephone service for the Port Isabel City Jail. In accordance with the contract, JCW installed a coinless telephone inside each jail cell so inmates could make collect calls. On the night of November 14, 1999, nineteen-year-old Rolando Domingo Montez ("Montez") was arrested on a misdemeanor charge of public intoxication and placed in Cell No. 1 of the Port Isabel City Jail. The following day Montez made three telephone calls to Garza from inside his jail cell, requesting that she post bail. Montez and Garza were subsequently informed that Montez would be released on his own recognizance at 5:00 p.m. on November 16, 1999. At 4:45 p.m. on the day of his intended release, Garza arrived at the city jail to pick up Montez. At 5:30 p.m., while Garza was waiting in the lobby, Montez was found dead, hanging from the cord of the telephone that JCW had installed in Cell No. 1.
B. BREACH OF CONTRACT
In its first and second issues, JCW asserts that a cause of action for breach of contract was not pleaded, not submitted to the jury, and not tried by consent. Therefore, JCW argues, the trial court erred in rendering a judgment for appellees for breach of contract.
1. Sufficiency of Pleading
The purpose of pleadings is "to give the adverse parties [fair] notice of each party's claims and defenses, as well as notice of the relief sought." Woolam v. Tussing, 54 S.W.3d 442, 447 (Tex. App.-Corpus Christi 2001, no pet.) (citing Perez v. Briercroft Serv. Co., 809 S.W.2d 216, 218 (Tex. 1991)); see TEX. R. CIV. P. 47(a). A pleading should "consist of a statement in plain and concise language of the plaintiff's cause of action or the defendant's grounds of defense." TEX. R. CIV. P. 45(b). Pleadings are construed liberally in favor of the pleader. Stone v. Lawyers Title Ins. Corp., 554 S.W.2d 183, 186 (Tex. 1977). "The court will look to the pleader's intendment" and uphold the pleading as to a cause of action even if some element of that cause of action has not been specifically alleged. Gulf, C. & S.F. Ry. Co. v. Bliss, 368 S.W.2d 5
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