Texas Supreme Court hears argument on whether delay damages can accompany specific performance in White Knight v. Simmons

At oral argument before the Supreme Court of Texas in White Knight v. Simmons, counsel for the petitioner and respondent contested whether Texas law allows courts to award monetary damages tied to delay in addition to specific performance in real‑property disputes; the case was submitted after argument and no decision has been issued.

The question presented at argument, as framed by Mister Flores, counsel for petitioner White Knight, was narrow: the parties now agree that concurrent relief is legally available, but the remaining issue is whether the trial court's written findings and conclusions justify the specific measure of delay‑related recovery the trial court awarded. "The district court judgment is correct, both at the bottom line and in the findings and conclusions that support it," Flores told the court, urging three alternate bases for affirmance: that the required findings appear in the record, that they were made by implication under Rule 299, and that the damages are properly characterized as consequential damages.

Why the issue matters: a ruling that permits (or forecloses) awards of delay or consequential damages together with specific performance would affect remedies available in disputed real‑property transactions, with potential monetary consequences for buyers, sellers, and lenders in Texas cases where courts order reconveyance or repurchase.

Flores urged the court to adopt a practical approach focused on causation and foreseeability. He told the justices that, under the parties' agreement and the trial findings, harms flowing from a delayed conveyance (for example, the costs of holding an unwanted property while a transaction slipped past the intended closing date) were proven and traceable to the delay. He argued that Rule 299 supports treating certain trial findings as impliedly made even if not expressed in the "magic words" the court of appeals cited. Flores asked the court to decide the threshold labeling question now and remit any preserved sufficiency issues to the court of appeals.

Respondent counsel Mister Bishop countered that Texas precedent and equitable principles counsel caution. Bishop emphasized the doctrine that, historically, parties who obtain specific performance generally do not also recover full contract damages and warned that allowing both remedies invites abuse and double recovery. He pointed to particular items in the trial award that he characterized as suspect, including prejudgment interest and credit‑card charges, and argued that many items were not the sort of damages this court has authorized alongside specific performance. "This court has never awarded damages in addition to specific performance," Bishop argued, and he urged the court either to reject concurrent awards or to remand for factbound analysis of which items (if any) genuinely constitute allowable delay‑related relief.

Several justices pressed both sides on limiting principles. Questions focused on foreseeability and proximate cause (whether the harms were foreseeable at contracting and whether the record supports a causal link to the delay), on how courts should avoid double counting, and on practical lines for measuring when delay begins and ends (for example, how appeals or an agreed repurchase window affect the calculation). The transcript records exchanges about particular categories of damages the trial court allowed: a $309,000 aggregate damage figure that the court of appeals struck (and which the parties debated here), a reference to roughly $709,000 in prejudgment interest as part of the broader damage calculations, and an itemized $6,400 listed as credit‑card charges in the trial findings.

Respondent also urged the court to consider equitable doctrines such as quasi‑estoppel and cautioned that some of the trial court's findings encompassed harms tied to other properties White Knight reportedly owned or lost (for example, taxes assessed on Aspen Street and Fitch Parkway properties discussed during argument), not just taxes on the Simmons property at issue. Counsel and the justices discussed whether and when such off‑site costs can be tied to a delayed conveyance without producing an unfair windfall.

No ruling was issued from the bench. "That concludes today's arguments. This case is submitted," the court announced at the end of the session.

The court's forthcoming opinion will address both doctrinal questions (whether, and under what limits, delay or consequential damages may be awarded alongside specific performance) and any narrower procedural questions about whether the trial court's findings, as written or implied, suffice to support the award at issue.