WCJ Assets, Ltd. sold a 1,417-acre ranch in Wise County to US Trinity Bridgeport, LLC under a Farm and Ranch Contract with a Special Provisions Addendum in which WCJ reserved the gravel, sand and limestone to a depth of fifty feet and the right to use the property for mining and removing them. The Addendum contemplated the parties working together for 90 days after closing to try to sell the aggregate to a third party. After closing, a dispute arose over US Trinity's refusal to cooperate in securing a third-party mining contract and over whether the reservation included the right to build a rock crushing and screening plant on the ranch.¹

WCJ sued US Trinity for breach of the Addendum and for a declaratory judgment, later adding fraudulent inducement and mistake and impracticability claims. The 271st District Court of Wise County (Judge Brock Smith) entered a temporary injunction against WCJ, which WCJ appealed; while that appeal was pending, the court signed the first of three orders granting US Trinity's motions: a traditional summary-judgment motion on the contract and declaratory claims, a second summary-judgment motion on fraudulent inducement, and a Rule 166(g) motion on the remaining claims. None of the three orders contained decretal language, simply reciting that the motions were granted. The Second Court of Appeals dismissed the interlocutory appeal as moot, stating that the summary-judgment ruling "has made a ruling on the merits" and posed the question for review after final judgment. US Trinity then nonsuited its contract counterclaim and tried only its attorney's-fees counterclaim; the jury awarded $1,066,352.81, and the final judgment recited the three orders, said US Trinity's right to fees was "the sole unresolved issue," and included a Mother Hubbard clause denying all other relief.¹ WCJ appealed and briefed the merits; after submission the court of appeals asked for supplemental briefing on whether the orders adjudicated anything. It affirmed without reaching the merits, holding that because the orders lacked decretal language the motions remained unadjudicated and the Mother Hubbard clause denied that relief, so WCJ had to challenge the final judgment in the trial court and did not. WCJ Assets, Ltd. v. US Trinity Bridgeport, LLC, No. 02-24-00232-CV, 2025 WL 3723942 (Tex. App.⁠—Fort Worth Dec. 23, 2025, pet. filed) (mem. op. by Wallach, J., joined by Kerr and Bassel, JJ.). En banc reconsideration was denied on March 19, 2026, with Justice Birdwell voting to grant it.² WCJ petitioned for review on June 2, 2026; US Trinity responded August 18 and WCJ replied September 14. The Court granted the petition on October 2, 2026 and set oral argument for March 2, 2027.

Petition for review from the Second Court of Appeals, which affirmed a judgment on a no-preservation ground in an appeal from a final judgment. The Court granted the petition on October 2, 2026 and set oral argument for March 2, 2027. No merits briefs have been filed yet.

1. US Trinity's motions asked the trial court to dismiss WCJ's claims, and the record reflects an understanding by the court and both parties that the three orders did so, including an express recital in the final judgment that fees were the sole unresolved issue. Did the court of appeals err in applying a bright-line rule that the lack of decretal language meant the orders were ineffective to adjudicate and dismiss the claims, and did it compound the error by failing to credit the indicia in the record that they did? 2. The court of appeals held in the interlocutory appeal that the first summary-judgment order adjudicated the declaratory claim. Was that determination law of the case binding in the later appeal? 3. Should the Court reverse and remand for the court of appeals to address the merits, by per curiam opinion at the petition stage?.¹ US Trinity presents a single issue: whether the court of appeals correctly held that WCJ did not preserve error because it did not challenge the final judgment in the trial court or on appeal.²

Petitioner (WCJ Assets, Ltd.): This Court repeatedly tells courts of appeals to hesitate to resolve cases on procedural defects and to reach the merits where possible, citing Bertucci v. Watkins and similar decisions, and it has never held that orders lacking decretal language are nullities. The three orders unambiguously grant the only relief US Trinity's motions sought, the dismissal of WCJ's claims; the jury charge, the fee application and the final judgment all treat the claims as dismissed, and a "host of indicia" with no contradiction shows the orders were effective. In the alternative, the court of appeals' interlocutory-appeal ruling that the first order adjudicated WCJ's declaratory claim is law of the case. WCJ asks the Court to reverse and remand for a merits decision, and to clarify the effect of missing decretal language.¹

Respondent (US Trinity Bridgeport, LLC): Error preservation is technical but not trivial, and WCJ never challenged the final judgment or its Mother Hubbard language in a post-judgment motion, so the trial court never had a chance to correct any error. The court of appeals did not call the summary orders a nullity; it held the final judgment's Mother Hubbard clause, inconsistent with granting the motions, replaced those interlocutory rulings, so the only operative relief against WCJ came from a judgment it did not attack. The briefing-waiver cases WCJ cites involve discretionary judgments about adequacy of briefing, not a failure to preserve, and law of the case does not apply because the Mother Hubbard clause supplanted any prior interlocutory order. Granting review, it says, would upend settled finality rules for a one-off situation.²

WCJ argues that the decision misreads this Court's precedents, applies a rule this Court has never adopted, and conflicts with the Court's repeated instruction to decide appeals on the merits; it also points to the inconsistency between the court of appeals' treatment of the same order in its interlocutory and final-judgment opinions and asks the Court to give clarity about the effect of missing decretal language.¹ US Trinity responds that no split among the courts of appeals, departure from precedent, novel question or statutory or constitutional issue is shown, and that the issue arises from unusual circumstances that will not recur if preservation rules are followed.²

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