In Trinh v. Cent. River Healthcare Group, a brother sued his sister over the management of a PLLC. No. 03-19-00393-CV, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 4542 (Tex. App.—Austin June 9, 2021, no pet. history). The brother claimed that the sister promised to pay him a salary, and she did not. The court of appeals affirmed the jury’s finding that there was no such promise based on the sister’s testimony that she did not remember making such a proposal, and even so: “evidence of a proposal does not prove an agreement.” Id.

The brother also challenged the jury’s finding that the sister complied with her duty by disputing that “the transactions in question were fair and equitable to Khiem . . . and 4. Loann [] placed the interests of Khiem [] before her own and did not use the advantage of her position to gain any benefit for herself at the expense of Khiem.” The brother argued that he contributed more than a half million dollars to the business when the sister claimed to own 100% of it and that the sister required the brother to pay federal income tax on 5% of the company’s profits most years, and on 50% of the profits one year while the brother received nothing in return. The jury heard testimony from the sister that

Khiem may have forfeited whatever interest he had in CRHG. In October 2011, he emailed Loann: “I don’t want to run the clinics. I am saving it before they collapse. Those are your clinics. I built them in the beginning for you. . . . I want you to take over without any headache. . . . Every investment in there is yours.” Loann testified to the point of Khiem’s email: “So basically he’s willing to forfeit everything so that way I can come back and run and resuscitate the clinic. That to me means that everything is under my management, my care[]. The whole business is legally under my direction[].” She also testified that she understood this email to mean “that he’s relinquished all his positions whether management, ownership, all investment. So it says every investment is yours.”

Id. Further, regarding the taxes, the court noted:

[T]he evidence does not support Khiem’s assertion that Loann “required” Khiem to pay those amounts of federal income tax. Khiem testified that he and Loann were equally responsible for the preparation of the tax return, that he sent the tax documents to the tax advisor and relied on him to prepare the filings, that he signed the tax filings that indicated the profit attribution of 95% for Loann and 5% for Khiem for the relevant tax years (2005-2012) except the 2007 tax filing indicated a 50% split, and that he “wasn’t interest[ed] in the profit [during] that period of time because there’s no profit.”

Id. The court affirmed the trial court’s judgment and the jury’s verdict for the sister.

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Photo of David Fowler Johnson David Fowler Johnson

[email protected]
817.420.8223

David maintains an active trial and appellate practice and has consistently worked on financial institution litigation matters throughout his career. David is the primary author of the The Fiduciary Litigator blog, which reports on legal cases and issues impacting the fiduciary…

[email protected]
817.420.8223

David maintains an active trial and appellate practice and has consistently worked on financial institution litigation matters throughout his career. David is the primary author of the The Fiduciary Litigator blog, which reports on legal cases and issues impacting the fiduciary field in Texas. Read More

David’s financial institution experience includes (but is not limited to): breach of contract, foreclosure litigation, lender liability, receivership and injunction remedies upon default, non-recourse and other real estate lending, class action, RICO actions, usury, various tort causes of action, breach of fiduciary duty claims, and preference and other related claims raised by receivers.

David also has experience in estate and trust disputes including will contests, mental competency issues, undue influence, trust modification/clarification, breach of fiduciary duty and related claims, and accountings. David’s recent trial experience includes:

  • Representing a bank in federal class action suit where trust beneficiaries challenged whether the bank was the authorized trustee of over 220 trusts;
  • Representing a bank in state court regarding claims that it mismanaged oil and gas assets;
  • Representing a bank who filed suit in probate court to modify three trusts to remove a charitable beneficiary that had substantially changed operations;
  • Represented an individual executor of an estate against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty and an accounting; and
  • Represented an individual trustee against claims raised by a beneficiary for breach of fiduciary duty, mental competence of the settlor, and undue influence.

David is one of twenty attorneys in the state (of the 84,000 licensed) that has the triple Board Certification in Civil Trial Law, Civil Appellate and Personal Injury Trial Law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization.

Additionally, David is a member of the Civil Trial Law Commission of the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. This commission writes and grades the exam for new applicants for civil trial law certification.

David maintains an active appellate practice, which includes:

  • Appeals from final judgments after pre-trial orders such as summary judgments or after jury trials;
  • Interlocutory appeals dealing with temporary injunctions, arbitration, special appearances, sealing the record, and receiverships;
  • Original proceedings such as seeking and defending against mandamus relief; and
  • Seeking emergency relief staying trial court’s orders pending appeal or mandamus.

For example, David was the lead appellate lawyer in the Texas Supreme Court in In re Weekley Homes, LP, 295 S.W.3d 309 (Tex. 2009). The Court issued a ground-breaking opinion in favor of David’s client regarding the standards that a trial court should follow in ordering the production of computers in discovery.

David previously taught Appellate Advocacy at Texas Wesleyan University School of Law located in Fort Worth. David is licensed and has practiced in the U.S. Supreme Court; the Fifth, Seventh, and Eleventh Federal Circuits; the Federal District Courts for the Northern, Eastern, and Western Districts of Texas; the Texas Supreme Court and various Texas intermediate appellate courts. David also served as an adjunct professor at Baylor University Law School, where he taught products liability and portions of health law. He has authored many legal articles and spoken at numerous legal education courses on both trial and appellate issues. His articles have been cited as authority by the Texas Supreme Court (twice) and the Texas Courts of Appeals located in Waco, Texarkana, Beaumont, Tyler and Houston (Fourteenth District), and a federal district court in Pennsylvania. David’s articles also have been cited by McDonald and Carlson in their Texas Civil Practice treatise, William v. Dorsaneo in the Texas Litigation Guide, and various authors in the Baylor Law ReviewSt. Mary’s Law JournalSouth Texas Law Review and Tennessee Law Review.

Representative Experience

  • Civil Litigation and Appellate Law