Santander Consumer USA, Inc. v. Palisades
Collection, LLC
Dallas Court of Appeals, No. 05-13-01459-CV (October 30,
2014)
Justices Bridges (Opinion), Lang, and Evans
Justices Bridges (Opinion), Lang, and Evans
In a breach-of-contract case, the trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Palisades Collection, LLC and against Santander Consumer USA, holding that Palisades had proven its case as a matter of law and awarding Palisades over $3.6 million in damages. The Dallas Court of Appeals reversed and rendered against a substantial portion of the claim, finding that Santander had conclusively proven its statute-of-limitations defense. The Court then reversed and remanded the remainder of Palisades’ claims. The case focused on whether Santander was obligated to buy back certain delinquent loans it had sold to Palisades. Palisades supported its summary judgment motion with the affidavit of its assistant vice-president of operations, who provided a spreadsheet of the loans at issue and testified that Palisades had been unable to collect on any of the loans on the spreadsheet. At his deposition, however, the witness had testified that he “did not know” if Palisades had been successful in its attempts to collect on the various loans and that he did not know of any document that would reflect whether Palisades had collected on the loans. The appellate court held that Palisades failed to explain how the witness who had previously stated he had no knowledge of collection efforts or their results could attest to such information in a later affidavit. Because of this conflict in evidence, Palisades failed to establish its claim as a matter of law, and summary judgment was not appropriate.
