Full Opinion

Fourth Court of Appeals San Antonio, Texas MEMORANDUM OPINION No. 04-25-00402-CV Joyce RUIZ, Appellant v. Raymond HARMON, Individually, Raymond Harmon d/b/a Harmon’s, and Raymond Harmon d/b/a Harmon’s BBQ, Appellees From the Probate Court No. 2, Bexar County, Texas Trial Court No. 2017PC1546-A Honorable Veronica Vasquez, Judge Presiding Opinion by: Velia J. Meza, Justice Sitting: Rebeca C. Martinez, Chief Justice Lori Massey Brissette, Justice Velia J. Meza, Justice Delivered and Filed: September 30, 2026 AFFIRMED Ronald Ruiz was a co-owner of a Cibolo barbecue restaurant when he died in October 2013. Four and a half years later, his widow, Joyce Ruiz, filed suit in the probate court administering Ronald’s estate to recover the value of Ronald’s share, naming his business partner as defendant. The trial court granted summary judgment against Ruiz on limitations, later 04-25-00402-CV sanctioned her for refusing to sit for court-ordered depositions, and severed her claims into their own cause. She appeals. Ruiz appears pro se and presents 17 issues on appeal. Read liberally, her brief raises four questions: whether limitations bars her claim for the value of Ronald’s partnership interest, whether the summary judgment order granted relief the defendants’ motion did not request, whether the sanctions order was an abuse of discretion, and whether her remaining complaints require reversal. Ronald’s partnership interest was redeemed by operation of law at his death. Given that Ruiz only held a creditor’s claim for the value of Ronald’s partnership interest, her suit—which was filed more than four years after the claim accrued—is barred by limitations. Her remaining complaints show no reversible error. We affirm. BACKGROUND Ronald Ruiz and Raymond Harmon opened Harmon’s BBQ in 2001. Joyce Ruiz alleges the two men were equal partners and that no one else held an interest. Harmon and Robert Catalano allege Catalano joined the venture the same year and held a twenty percent interest. Ronald Ruiz died on October 15, 2013. From October 2013 through early 2015, Harmon made a series of payments to Joyce Ruiz. In November 2013, Harmon filed an assumed-name certificate identifying himself as the sole owner of the business. On May 1, 2017, Ruiz filed an application for letters of administration regarding Ronald’s estate. Ruiz was appointed independent administrator of Ronald’s estate. On October 10, 2017, counsel for the estate and counsel for Harmon entered into a tolling agreement covering claims related to the redemption of Ronald’s interest. Ruiz filed a petition in her individual capacity against Harmon on May 4, 2018, pleading six claims: recovery of the redemption value of Ronald’s partnership interest, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, -2- 04-25-00402-CV conversion, theft, and money had and received. Ruiz’s counsel then moved to sever her individual claims from the estate proceeding. The trial court granted the motion and severed the cause. 1 Ruiz twice amended her petition, each time abandoning every claim but redemption. She began representing herself in October 2021. Harmon and Catalano then moved jointly for summary judgment, arguing that the redemption claim accrued at Ronald’s death and that the four-year limitations period expired before suit. Eight days before the hearing, Ruiz filed a third amended petition reasserting all six original claims. The trial court granted Harmon and Catalano’s joint motion and dismissed all of Ruiz’s claims. On September 20, 2023, Harmon moved for sanctions and alleged that Ruiz failed to appear for noticed depositions, did not comply with an order compelling her deposition, filed several frivolous motions, and engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. The trial court heard the motion on November 6, 2024, and granted it. Ruiz moved to vacate the sanctions order. The court granted that motion in part, held a second evidentiary hearing on April 16, 2025, and signed a new sanctions order on May 12, 2025. The May 12, 2025 order struck Ruiz’s pleadings, barred further discovery, barred her from offering financial evidence for periods after 2013, and awarded Harmon attorney’s fees. The same day, the court severed Ruiz’s claims into cause number 2017PC1546-A and disposed of all claims in the severed cause. This appeal followed. 2 DISCUSSION We construe pro se briefs liberally and with patience for imprecision. Li v. Pemberton Park Cmty. Ass’n, 631 S.W.3d 701, 706 (Tex. 2021) (per curiam); Mansfield State Bank v. Cohn, 573 1 While the motion to sever was granted in 2018, the parties continued to file in the original cause number. 2 Ruiz earlier attempted to appeal four of the trial court’s interlocutory orders, including the summary judgment order she challenges again here. We dismissed that appeal for want of jurisdiction because there was no final, appealable judgment. In re Estate of Ruiz, No. 04-22-00650-CV, 2023 WL 242735, at *2–3 (Tex. App.—San Antonio Jan. 18, 2023, no pet.) (mem. op.). -3- 04-25-00402-CV S.W.2d 181, 185 (Tex. 1978). But a pro se litigant is held to the same substantive and procedural standards as a represented party, because any other rule would give the self-represented litigant an unfair advantage. Mansfield, 573 S.W.2d at 185. To the extent possible, we address the appellate issues Ruiz supports with adequate authority and citations to the record. TEX. R. APP. P. 38.1(i). A complaint unsupported by argument, authority, or record references presents nothing for our review and is waived. Fredonia State Bank v. Gen. Am. Life Ins. Co., 881 S.W.2d 279, 283–84 (Tex. 1994). 1 Limitations bars the redemption claim. Ruiz challenges the trial court’s summary judgment ruling based on the statute of limitations. See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 16.004. She argues that no claim accrued when her husband died because the partnership was never wound up, no one valued or bought out Ronald’s interest, and Harmon instead paid her a share of the profits for more than a year afterward—so that her husband’s interest did not disappear at his death. TEX. BUS. ORGS. CODE § 152.406. According to Ruiz, her claim accrued no earlier than 2015—when she learned of the breach—and her May 2018 petition was therefore timely. She adds that the 2017 tolling agreement cannot bear on the analysis because her attorneys signed it without her knowledge or consent. We review summary judgment de novo. Fossil Grp., Inc. v. Harris, 691 S.W.3d 874, 882 (Tex. 2024). A defendant moving for summary judgment on limitations must conclusively establish when the claim accrued and that the limitations period expired before suit. KPMG Peat Marwick v. Harrison Cnty. Hous. Fin. Corp., 988 S.W.2d 746, 748 (Tex. 1999). Accrual here is fixed by statute. A partner’s death is an event of withdrawal. TEX. BUS. ORGS. CODE § 152.501(b)(7)(A). If no event requiring a winding up of the partnership business -4- 04-25-00402-CV occurs before the 61st day after the withdrawal, the partnership automatically redeems the withdrawing partner’s interest by operation of law, and the interest is valued on the date of withdrawal. Id. §§ 152.601(1), 152.602(a). One whose interest has been redeemed—including the surviving spouse of a deceased partner—stands as a creditor of the partnership with respect to the redemption price. Id. § 152.406(a)(2)(A). A surviving spouse is a transferee of the interest only if it is not subject to redemption. Id. § 152.406(a)(2)(B). A creditor’s claim for a debt is governed by the four-year statute of limitations. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE § 16.004(a)(3). Here, the operative date is October 15, 2013, the date Ronald Ruiz passed away. Ruiz does not contend that any event required a winding up of the partnership in the 60 days after his death; her position is that the partnership never wound up at all. Under her own argument, Ronald’s interest was thus subject to redemption. See TEX. BUS. ORGS. CODE § 152.406(a)(2)(a). His interest was redeemed at the latest 60 days following his death—December 14, 2013—and whatever right Joyce Ruiz held to its value existed from that day forward. Four years later limitations ran. The tolling agreement does not change this result. Even if the agreement reached Ruiz’s individual claims, they would still be barred. The agreement tolled limitations for 120 days beginning on its October 10, 2017 effective date, so the tolling period ended on February 7, 2018. Ruiz did not file her individual claims until May 4, 2018. And the agreement’s additional 90-day window ran by its terms only to the estate: “For any tolled claim the estate shall have ninety (90) days from the expiration of the tolling expiration date to file or amend suit to present a claim that would have been time barred.” But the claims at issue in this appeal are Ruiz’s claims in her individual capacity—not the estate’s. Those claims are untimely. Ruiz’s other limitation arguments are unavailing. She argues Harmon admitted her as a partner by paying her after Ronald’s death, and that a fact issue exists on the identity of the true -5- 04-25-00402-CV partners. Sharing profits with the surviving spouse of a deceased partner does not by itself indicate that a person is a partner. TEX. BUS. ORGS. CODE § 152.052(b)(1)(D). And whether the partnership had two members or three does not change the redemption date or when a claim for the redemption price accrued. Ruiz also complains of three evidentiary rulings: an order limiting discovery to periods ending in 2013, orders quashing subpoenas she issued to the business’s accountant and its bank, and the refusal to take judicial notice of federal tax filings and assumed-name certificates. Assuming for the sake of argument that each ruling was wrong, none could have caused the rendition of an improper judgment. TEX. R. APP. P. 44.1(a)(1). The redemption price is valued as of the date of death, TEX. BUS. ORGS. CODE § 152.602, and none of the excluded material bears on when Ruiz’s claim accrued or when she filed suit. We overrule Ruiz’s first, second, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, and ninth issues. 2 Any error in the scope of the summary judgment order was harmless. Ruiz argues that the joint motion for summary judgment addressed only the redemption claim and that the September 23, 2022 order dismissed all six of her claims. We agree in part. A summary judgment may be granted only on grounds expressly presented in the motion, and granting judgment on a claim the motion did not address is, as a general rule, reversible error. G & H Towing Co. v. Magee, 347 S.W.3d 293, 297 (Tex. 2011) (per curiam). But the error is harmless when the omitted claims are “precluded as a matter of law by other grounds raised in the case.” Id. at 297–98. That is the case here. Each of the five claims the motion did not separately address—breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, conversion, theft, and money had and received—are -6- 04-25-00402-CV derivative of the same redemption claim: all relate to transfer and redemption of Ronald’s partnership interest as of his death. Each claim accrued when that value went unpaid, and none is governed by a limitations period longer than four years. TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE §§ 16.003(a), 16.004(a). These claims are thus “intertwined with, and precluded by, a ground addressed in the motion.” Magee, 347 S.W.3d at 297. The accrual date and limitations bar we have just described therefore equally disposes of all six claims. Reversing as to five of them would accomplish nothing. See Torres v. Upper Valley Helpsource, Inc., No. 04-17-00051-CV, 2018 WL 3265459, at *6 (Tex. App.—San Antonio July 5, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op.) (concluding that error in granting summary judgment on a claim the motion for summary judgment omitted was harmless because the claim was precluded as a matter of law by a ground already raised in the case); TEX. R. APP. P. 44.1(a). 3 Ruiz separately argues that her attorneys abandoned five of her claims, and moved to sever her case, without her authority. So long as the attorney-client relationship endures, the attorney’s actions necessarily bind the client. Gracey v. West, 422 S.W.2d 913, 916 (Tex. 1968). Ruiz provides no record support for her argument that her attorneys acted without authority. An appellate court is not responsible for searching the record for facts that may be favorable to a party’s position or for doing the legal research that might support a party’s contentions. Bolling v. Farmers Branch Indep. Sch. Dist., 315 S.W.3d 893, 895 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2010, no pet.) (“Were we to do so, even for a pro se litigant untrained in law, we would be abandoning our role as judges and become an advocate for that party.”); Fredonia State Bank, 881 S.W.2d at 283–84. She also has not shown that she presented these complaints to the trial court. See TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1. 3 Additionally, Ruiz has no claims left to remand. The May 12, 2025 sanctions order struck Ruiz’s third amended petition and her remaining pleadings. As explained in section 3, we overrule Ruiz’s appellate challenges to that sanctions order. Reversing the summary judgment as to the five claims would not revive the pleadings struck by that sanctions order. See TEX. R. APP. P. 44.1(a). -7- 04-25-00402-CV We overrule Ruiz’s eighth and twelfth issues. 3 The sanctions order was within the trial court’s discretion. Ruiz raises several complaints about the May 12, 2025 sanctions order. She contends the court sanctioned her without notice and without a meaningful opportunity to be heard. She contends the order is inconsistent with the evidence, because she was never properly served with notice of the deposition the intervenor requested, because her own attorney gave her one day’s notice of an out-of-state deposition she could not attend, and because she sought the unauthorized discovery in good faith. And she contends the trial court failed to cure the prejudice caused by the first order when it granted her motion for reconsideration. 4 We review sanctions for abuse of discretion. Am. Flood Rsch., Inc. v. Jones, 192 S.W.3d 581, 583 (Tex. 2006) (per curiam). A trial court abuses its discretion only when it acts without reference to any guiding rules and principles, such that its ruling is arbitrary or unreasonable. Low v. Henry, 221 S.W.3d 609, 614 (Tex. 2007). Due process requires that a party facing sanctions receive notice reasonably calculated to apprise her that sanctions are sought and an opportunity to present her objections. In re L.A.M. & Assocs., 975 S.W.2d 80, 83 (Tex. App.—San Antonio 1998, orig. proceeding) (citing Peralta v. Heights Med. Ctr., Inc., 485 U.S. 80, 84 (1988)); TEX. R. CIV. P. 215.2(b) (discovery sanctions may be imposed “after notice and hearing”). Ruiz received more than adequate process. The trial court heard Harmon’s sanctions motion on November 6, 2024, over a year after the motion was filed, and considered Ruiz’s testimony and arguments. When Ruiz moved to vacate, the court granted her motion in part and 4 Ruiz does not challenge the trial court’s authority to strike her pleadings as a discovery sanction, and we express no opinion on that ruling on appeal. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 215.2(b)(5) (authorizing an order striking pleadings as a discovery sanction); Cire v. Cummings, 134 S.W.3d 835, 839–41 (Tex. 2004) (death-penalty sanctions terminate a party’s right to present the merits of its claims and are reserved for exceptional cases). -8- 04-25-00402-CV set the matter for rehearing. It then held a second full evidentiary hearing on April 16, 2025, on more than thirty days’ notice, at which Ruiz appeared and participated. On reconsideration, the court dropped its findings deeming matters established against her and it declined to sanction her for her filings on the estate’s behalf. The sanctions order rested on Ruiz’s conduct directed at the discovery process itself. Ruiz did not appear for two properly noticed depositions. She did not comply with an order compelling her deposition. And she obtained the business’s bank records by serving a business-records request outside the discovery rules, after the trial court had quashed her subpoenas for the same material. The court heard her explanations for that conduct at the April 16 hearing. On this record, we cannot say the trial court acted arbitrarily or without reference to guiding principles. We overrule Ruiz’s tenth issue insofar as it challenges the sanctions order, and we overrule her eleventh issue. 4 The remaining complaints are meritless. Ruiz’s remaining issues do not require extended treatment. Severance. Ruiz argues the 2018 severance was improper and the 2025 severance was redundant. Her own counsel moved for the 2018 severance. A party cannot complain on appeal that the trial court took a specific action the complaining party requested. Tittizer v. Union Gas Corp., 171 S.W.3d 857, 862 (Tex. 2005) (per curiam). Ruiz also did not object to the 2025 severance. Ruiz has thus preserved neither complaint for review. See TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1(a). We overrule Ruiz’s tenth issue insofar as it challenges the severance, and we overrule her thirteenth and fourteenth issues. -9- 04-25-00402-CV The trial court’s authority. Ruiz argues the probate court lacked authority to act in the severed cause because the parties continued to file under the original cause number. An order granting a severance is effective when signed, and it takes effect whether or not the clerk ever creates a separate physical file or assigns a new number to it. McRoberts v. Ryals, 863 S.W.2d 450, 452–53 (Tex. 1993). The trial court noted the parties’ practice and directed the clerk to give effect to the severance it had ordered. A docketing mismatch of this kind does not withdraw a cause from the court that created it. See Mitschke v. Borromeo, 645 S.W.3d 251, 260 (Tex. 2022) (“Texas law greatly favors resolving litigation on the merits rather than on procedural technicalities.”). We overrule Ruiz’s fifteenth issue. Recusal. Ruiz filed three motions to recuse Judge Vasquez. Each time, the judge declined to recuse voluntarily and instead referred the motion, as Rule 18a requires. TEX. R. CIV. P. 18a(f). An assigned judge denied the first motion after a hearing. The presiding judge of the Fourth Administrative Judicial Region denied the second and third, each time because the motion was unverified and alleged no ground for recusal. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 18a(a)(1) (motion must be verified). We review a recusal ruling for abuse of discretion. TEX. R. CIV. P. 18a(j)(1)(A). Ruiz’s motions rested on the trial court’s adverse rulings and on her disagreement with them. Judicial rulings alone almost never supply a valid basis for a bias or partiality motion, and opinions a judge forms during a proceeding do not require recusal unless they display a deep-seated antagonism that would make fair judgment impossible. Dow Chem. Co. v. Francis, 46 S.W.3d 237, 240 (Tex. 2001) (citing Liteky v. United States, 510 U.S. 540, 555 (1994)). Ruiz identified nothing beyond her disagreement with Judge Vasquez’s rulings. Denying her recusal motions was not an abuse of discretion. We overrule Ruiz’s seventeenth issue. - 10 - 04-25-00402-CV Catalano’s intervention. Ruiz complains that Robert Catalano was permitted to participate in the litigation. Catalano entered the case twice over: the trial court granted Harmon’s motion to join him as a necessary party in February 2020, and Catalano then filed a plea in intervention. Ruiz never moved to strike the intervention. A party who opposes an intervention bears the burden to challenge it by a motion to strike, and absent such a motion the trial court lacks discretion to strike an intervention. Guar. Fed. Sav. Bank v. Horseshoe Operating Co., 793 S.W.2d 652, 657 (Tex. 1990); TEX. R. CIV. P. 60. Nor does Ruiz explain how Catalano’s presence caused the rendition of an improper judgment, given that her claims fail on limitations regardless of Catalano’s involvement. TEX. R. APP. P. 44.1(a)(1). We overrule Ruiz’s fourth issue. Court personnel. Ruiz asserts that a court staff attorney advised the defendants to file a motion. Nothing in the record supports the assertion, she never presented the complaint to the trial court, and she does not explain how the asserted conduct caused the rendition of an improper judgment. TEX. R. APP. P. 33.1(a), 44.1(a). We overrule Ruiz’s sixteenth issue. Jury trial. To the extent Ruiz’s first issue also complains that she was denied a jury, granting summary judgment does not deprive a party of the right to a jury trial when no genuine issue of material fact remains. Kholaif v. Safi, 636 S.W.3d 313, 318 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2021, pet. denied); cf. Mercedes-Benz Credit Corp. v. Rhyne, 925 S.W.2d 664, 667 (Tex. 1996) (holding that denial of right to jury trial is reversible only when there are “material fact questions”). Other authorities. To the extent Ruiz’s fifth and sixth issues rely on the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct, section 736 of the Internal Revenue Code, and the Texas assumed-name statute, she offers no argument or authority connecting these to a ruling of the trial court, and we - 11 - 04-25-00402-CV conclude her complaints are inadequately briefed. TEX. R. APP. P. 38.1(i); Fredonia State Bank, 881 S.W.2d at 284. Cumulative error. To the extent Ruiz argues that her complaints, taken together, require reversal, she cites no authority recognizing cumulative error as an independent ground for reversal, and we conclude the complaint is inadequately briefed. TEX. R. APP. P. 38.1(i). CONCLUSION Having overruled each of Ruiz’s appellate issues, we affirm the trial court’s judgment. Velia J. Meza, Justice - 12 -