# Kuo v. Regions Bank Supreme Court of Texas, No. 24-1039 **Kuo v. Regions Bank, No. 24-1039 (Tex. Oct. 10, 2025). Holding: The court of appeals should have reached the merits of Petitioners' evidentiary challenges, because Rule 166a requires summary-judgment evidence to be on file at the hearing but not physically attached to the motion; its judgment is reversed and the case remanded for it to address the second, third, and fourth issues.** Practice areas: civil procedure, financial services, attorney fees ## Key issues - A court of appeals erred by ruling sua sponte that a guarantors' summary-judgment challenges were not preserved because certain evidence was missing from the appellate record, when both sides agreed the documents were on file for the trial court, since Rule 166a requires evidence to be on file at the hearing, not physically attached to the motion. - Where a court of appeals is unsure whether documents attached to another pleading apply to the motion under review, it should ask the parties to clarify or consider the on-file evidence and reach the merits rather than find a procedural default that no party urged; the case is remanded to decide the unaddressed issues. ## Factual History Regions Bank made loans for the construction of a medical facility in Dallas, and Petitioners Ja-Lynn Kuo, JLKUO PLLC, Subho Mullick, SM ER PLC, Salima Amina Thobani, and SRG Consulting LLC signed guaranties securing them (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 1). The Bank sued Petitioners and others to collect (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF pp. 1-2). After a first summary-judgment motion in August 2020 was denied by a different judge, the Bank filed a second motion that referred to exhibits but did not physically attach them; the exhibits had been filed earlier with the original motion and with a July 2021 motion against other defendants (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 15). The guaranty obligations were later restructured with new primary obligors, Drs. Turner and Cradeur, which Petitioners say makes the Bank's recovery against them conditional (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 15-16, 18; Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 4). ## Procedural History This is a petition for review from a summary judgment. The trial court (192nd District Court, Dallas County) granted the Bank summary judgment on September 13, 2022, holding each Petitioner liable for a share of the debt and for the Bank's full attorney's fees of $603,795.78 incurred against all defendants, with credit for payments made by others (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 7, 16). The Fifth Court of Appeals affirmed on July 8, 2024: it held the judgment final, declined to reach Petitioners' second, third, and fourth issues, which argued the Bank did not prove conditions precedent or damages and challenged the attorney's fees evidence, and denied rehearing and en banc reconsideration without opinion (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 7, 10, 17; Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 2). The Court granted the petition and, without oral argument or full briefing, reversed and remanded per curiam on October 10, 2025 (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 4). ## Issues Presented Petitioners present three issues (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF p. 9): 1. Whether the court of appeals violated Rule 47.1, which requires it to address every issue raised and necessary to final disposition, by refusing to consider the Bank's proof of conditions precedent, damages, and attorney's fees on the incorrect assumption that the appellate record was incomplete. 2. Whether its holding that the judgment was final violated horizontal stare decisis and *Mitschke v. Borromeo* by ignoring an earlier Dallas decision, *Ranyak*. 3. Whether it ignored a provision of the guaranty agreement that incorporates later agreements with the primary borrower and would make the unconditional guaranty conditional. The Bank restates the issues as whether any error in the record holding was harmless because Petitioners' arguments are meritless, whether the judgment was final under *Hargrove*, and whether the court of appeals correctly held Petitioners were not parties to or third-party beneficiaries of the later debt-assumption agreement (Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 4). ## Standard(s) of Review Rule 166a(c) requires summary-judgment evidence to be on file at the time of the hearing, not physically attached to the motion, and the Court asked whether the evidence was on file for the district court and the court of appeals (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 3). ## Legal Arguments **Whether the court of appeals had to reach the unaddressed issues.** **Petitioners:** The parties agreed the record was complete and nobody argued otherwise, so Rule 47.1 required the court of appeals to decide the issues on the merits rather than treat the evidence as missing; only that court can decide whether the issues have merit (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 9-10, 18-20; Reply to Response to Petition filed (Petitioner), PDF p. 4). **Respondent (the Bank):** It agrees with Petitioners that the summary-judgment evidence was properly in the appellate record, but contends that any error was harmless because Petitioners' evidentiary arguments fail on the merits and the court of appeals would have reached the same result (Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF pp. 4-5). **Finality and the guaranty provisions.** **Petitioners:** The judgment conditions recovery on uncertain post-judgment collections and so is not final, contrary to the court of appeals' own *Ranyak* decision, and the court overlooked a guaranty provision incorporating later agreements with the primary borrower (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 9, 18-19). **Respondent (the Bank):** The judgment fully adjudicated each Petitioner's liability, unlike *Ranyak*, and the court of appeals correctly held Petitioners were neither parties to nor third-party beneficiaries of the debt-assumption agreement they invoke (Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF pp. 5-6). ## Stated Reasons the Court Should Take the Case Petitioners argued that the court of appeals violated a mandatory appellate rule and its own precedent, and that collection suits by banks on bank-drafted guaranties are commonplace, making these questions important to the jurisprudence of the State (Petition for Review (Petitioner), PDF pp. 10, 18). The Bank answered that the case is a fact-specific collection dispute presenting no question of law important to the jurisprudence of the State (Response to Petition (Respondent), PDF p. 5). ## Practice Area Tags civil-procedure, financial-services, attorney-fees ## Procedural Posture/Vehicle Petition for review from the Fifth Court of Appeals after summary judgment; granted and decided per curiam without oral argument under Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 59.1 and without full briefing on the merits, on October 10, 2025 (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 4). ## Amicus Involvement None ## Holding The court of appeals should have reached the merits of Petitioners' evidentiary challenges, because Rule 166a requires summary-judgment evidence to be on file at the hearing but not physically attached to the motion; its judgment is reversed and the case remanded for it to address the second, third, and fourth issues (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). ## Court's Reasoning Petitioners argued here and in the court of appeals that the documents were in the district court and appellate record and were "on file," and the Bank did not dispute that they were filed multiple times in the voluminous record and referenced in various pleadings, including earlier summary-judgment motions; the Bank itself agreed in both courts that the evidence was on file at the hearing (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF pp. 2-3). The Court agreed with both sides that the evidence was on file, and Rule 166a does not require physical attachment, citing *State v. $3,774.28* and *Enterprise Leasing v. Barrios* (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 3). If the court of appeals was uncertain whether documents attached to one pleading applied to the motion under review, it could have asked the parties to clarify rather than find, sua sponte, a forfeiture the Bank did not urge; considering the on-file evidence would have avoided a procedural default and reached the merits, "the preferable course whenever reasonably possible," citing *Bertucci v. Watkins* and *Weeks Marine v. Garza* (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 3). The Bank's argument that the evidentiary challenges fail on the merits is for the court of appeals to decide first, as the Court has done in remanding unaddressed issues in other cases (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF pp. 3-4). ## Disposition Petition granted, the court of appeals' judgment reversed, and the case remanded for that court to address in the first instance the merits of the second, third, and fourth issues Petitioners raised there (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 4). ## Vote Breakdown Per curiam opinion; no separate writings (Per Curiam Opinion, PDF p. 1). --- Source: The SCOTX Report, https://scotxreport.com/cases/24-1039. AI-generated summary of the Court's opinion, orders and the parties' briefs, with pin cites to the page of each document; verify against the Court's own documents at search.txcourts.gov.