U.S. Bank v. TFHSP LLC Series 6481, 487 S.W.3d 715 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 2016, no pet.).
Beneficiary sued Trustee, a foreign corporation,
and received a no-answer default judgment. Trustee appealed. The
appellate court examined the pleadings and determined that the trial
court lacked personal jurisdiction over Trustee because Beneficiary’s
service of process was invalid.
The court focused on Estates Code §§ 505.001-.006
which governs service of process on foreign corporate fiduciaries.
Beneficiary failed to assert jurisdictional facts such as providing the
proper Estates Code section under which service of process should be
made and alleging that Trustee was a foreign corporate fiduciary. The
court explained that jurisdictional facts cannot be inferred from
Trustee’s name as found in the petition.
A concurring opinion points out that the
Beneficiary’s failure to reference the proper section of the Estates
Code appeared to be a mere typographical error.
Moral: When suing a foreign corporate
fiduciary, the plaintiff must be certain to recite the applicable
jurisdictional facts and carefully proofread citations to the Estates
Code.