Justice Velia Meza
Stricker Construction, LLC v. H&E Equipment Services, LLC (No. 04-24-00751-CV; January 21, 2026) arose from a dispute between a construction company and an equipment dealer. Stricker entered into an agreement with H&E to rent equipment under which H&E extended a line of credit guaranteed personally by Stricker’s owner, Brad Stricker. Stricker utilized the line of credit and rented equipment but allegedly failed to pay almost $20,000 in invoices between November 2022 and June 2023. H&E filed suit alleging breach of contract and breach of guaranty. Stricker, acting pro se, filed an answer in his individual capacity, including a verified denial and affirmative defenses. In May 2024 H&E moved for summary judgment, but before the trial court scheduled the motion for hearing, the parties agreed to a continuance to allow Plaintiff’s counsel to have a medical procedure and the parties to complete their settlement negotiations. The trial court reset the trial date for September 16, 2024.
At H&E’s request, the trial court set its motion for summary judgment for August 2, 2024, by submission only. Plaintiff’s certificate of conference reflected that Plaintiff’s counsel placed five separate phone calls to Brad Stricker, none of which he returned. When Stricker didn’t appear for the summary judgment hearing, the trial court granted Plaintiff’s MSJ on August 5. A few weeks later, the Strickers, who had since retained counsel, filed a motion for new trial and requested by email a timely hearing. Nothing happened, and their motion was overruled by operation of law. The Strickers appealed.
In an opinion by Justice Meza, the court of appeals reversed and remanded for new trial. The court’s analysis centered on the Craddock standard, which requires the court to examine “the actor’s state of mind” and determine “whether the actor (1) realized its mistake before judgment and (2) had ‘other avenues of relief available’” (citations omitted). That determination could depend on “whether an actor is an attorney or a pro se litigant,” who presumably don’t have the “same knowledge as lawyers.” In order for a defaulting party to succeed in a motion for new trial, the party must establish that: “(1) the defendant’s failure to answer before judgment was not intentional or the result of conscious indifference, but rather due to a mistake or accident; (2) a meritorious defense is set up in the motion for new trial; and (3) granting the motion will occasion no delay or otherwise injure the plaintiff” (citations omitted). In the summary judgment context, the court went on, “‘to set up a meritorious defense’ means to allege facts and bring forth summary judgment proof sufficient to raise a material issue of fact” (citations omitted).
First, the court found that Craddock applied to this case. Here Plaintiff properly served its motion for summary judgment, along with the notice setting the motion for consideration by submission. Stricker, however, claimed that he was unaware of it because the email ended up in his spam folder. He further didn’t anticipate the early August setting because he had advised Plaintiff’s counsel that he couldn’t be available for court until late in the month. Stricker also claimed that he thought Plaintiff’s motion had to do with settlement negotiations, not final disposition of the case. Taking these facts as true, the court reasoned, it “appears that the Strickers did not realize their mistake before the trial court granted summary judgment. It also establishes that their failure to respond was due to mistake or accident, rather than conscious indifference.” The Strickers thus met the first prong of the Craddock test.
As to the other two prongs, the court found that the Strickers set up a meritorious defense by raising a fact issue as to the amount they owed Plaintiff because, they alleged, Plaintiff failed to retrieve the rented equipment in a timely fashion and, consequently, overcharged them. Because Plaintiff moved for summary judgment based on breach of guaranty and breach of contract claims on a sworn account, it had the burden to prove all the essential elements of those claims (citations omitted). One of those elements is the amount owed on the account, which the Strickers challenged through a verified denial. In their motion for new trial, the Strickers alleged that Plaintiff’s invoices were “grossly inaccurate” because of the retrieval delay. The second prong was satisfied. Regarding the third prong, the court ruled that since Plaintiff didn’t produce any evidence establishing that it would be harmed by delay or injury of the Strickers’ motion for new trial was granted, the Strickers satisfied that part of the test as well. The trial court thus abused its discretion by allowing their motion for new trial to be overruled by operation of law. The court remanded for further proceedings.
