Case: 21-20145 Document: 00516104201 Page: 1 Date Filed: 11/22/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Fifth Circuit United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
___________ FILED
November 22, 2021
No. 21-20145
___________ Lyle W. Cayce
Clerk
Fire Protection Service, Incorporated,
Plaintiff—Appellant,
versus
Survitec Survival Products, Incorporated,
Defendant—Appellee.
______________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
USDC No. 4:19-CV-2162
______________________________
Before Elrod, Oldham, and Wilson, Circuit Judges.
Jennifer Walker Elrod, Circuit Judge:
Fire Protection Service, Inc. filed an unopposed motion to certify a
state-law question to the Supreme Court of Texas. Because this case
presents a determinative and novel question of Texas law, we GRANT the
motion and certify the question.
I.
The facts of this case are fairly straightforward. Survitec Survival
Products, Inc. makes life rafts. Survitec had an open-ended oral agreement
with Fire Protection to sell Survitec’s life rafts. After they made that
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agreement, the Texas Legislature passed the Fair Practices of Equipment
Manufacturers, Distributors, Wholesalers, and Dealers Act (“the Texas
Dealers Act” or “the Act”). Act of May 27, 2011, 82d Leg., R.S., ch. 1039,
§§ 1–5, 2011 Tex. Gen. Laws 2646–59. The Act (among other things)
prohibits equipment suppliers like Survitec from ending dealer agreements
without good cause and notice, and it requires those suppliers to buy back
unsold inventory from dealers like Fire Protection when they do so. See Tex.
Bus. & Com. Code §§ 57.202, 57.204, 57.355(a). Survitec later ended its
relationship with Fire Protection without notice and without explaining why.
Fire Protection sued Survitec, alleging it violated these provisions of
the Act. Survitec removed the case to federal court, then responded that the
Act violates the Texas Constitution’s prohibition on “retroactive law[s].”
See Tex. Const. art. I, § 16 (“No bill of attainder, ex post facto law,
retroactive law, or any law impairing the obligation of contracts, shall be
made.”). The district court agreed with Survitec and held that the Act was
unconstitutional to the extent it retroactively amended the oral agreement
between the two parties. Fire Protection appealed.
II.
When a case presents a question of Texas law, we look to the decisions
of the Supreme Court of Texas for the answer. When no decision gives
enough guidance, rather than make an Erie guess at the answer, we
sometimes ask the Supreme Court of Texas to answer the question for us.
Austin v. Kroger Tex. L.P., 746 F.3d 191, 196 (5th Cir. 2014). The Texas
Constitution gives that court the power to do so, Tex. Const. art. V, § 3-c(a),
so long as the case presents “determinative questions of Texas law” not
already answered by the Court’s precedent, Tex. R. App. P. 58.1. On our
end, we consider three factors before certifying a question:
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(1) the closeness of the question and the
existence of sufficient sources of state law;
(2) the degree to which considerations of comity
are relevant in light of the particular issue and
case to be decided; and
(3) practical limitations of the certification
process: significant delay and possible inability to
frame the issue so as to produce a helpful
response on the part of the state court.
Silguero v. CSL Plasma, Inc., 907 F.3d 323, 332 (5th Cir. 2018). Each favors
certification here.
Whether the Act (as applied to the preexisting oral agreement)
violates the Texas Constitution’s retroactivity clause is a close call. The
retroactivity clause has been part of the state’s constitution for “as long as
the State of Texas has been the State of Texas.” City of Fort Worth v. Rylie,
602 S.W.3d 459, 460 (Tex. 2020). It has its roots in the Declaration of Rights
in the Constitution of the Republic of Texas: “No retrospective or ex post
facto law, or laws impairing the obligations of contracts shall be made.”
Repub. Tex. Const. of 1836, Dec. of Rights § 16. And it has been featured in
the Bill of Rights in each of the state’s constitutions since. See Robinson v.
Crown Cork & Seal Co., Inc.,
335 S.W.3d 126, 138 & n.63 (Tex. 2010).
Despite this long history, the clause is not so easy to apply. By its
terms, the clause is seemingly absolute: No “retroactive law” “shall be
made.” Tex. Const. art. I, § 16. Most laws have some retroactive effect,
though, because they often “operate to change existing conditions.” Tex.
Water Rights Comm’n v. Wright, 464 S.W.2d 642, 648 (Tex. 1971). The
Supreme Court of Texas has thus acknowledged that “not all statutes that
apply retroactively are constitutionally prohibited.” Subaru of Am., Inc. v.
David McDavid Nissan, Inc.,
84 S.W.3d 212, 219 (Tex. 2002); Robinson, 335
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S.W.3d at 160 (Willett, J., concurring) (“Retroactivity in and of itself is not
fatal.”). When the Court first interpreted the clause, Chief Justice Hemphill
wrote that “[l]aws are deemed retrospective and within the constitutional
prohibition which by retrospective operation destroy or impair vested
rights.” DeCordova v. City of Galveston, 4 Tex. 470, 479 (1849). But the
“impairs vested rights” framework proved circular. As then-Justice Hecht
put it: “What constitutes an impairment of vested rights is too much in the
eye of the beholder,” as it ultimately boils down to a law’s being
unconstitutionally retroactive “if it takes away what should not be taken
away.” Robinson,
335 S.W.3d at 143. That test being unworkable, the Court
in Robinson concluded that “[n]o bright-line test for unconstitutional
retroactivity is possible,” and it changed course.
Id. at 145.
In light of the clause’s dual objectives—“protecting settled
expectations and preventing abuse of legislative power,” id. at 139—Robinson
instructed courts to consider three factors to decide whether a retroactive law
is constitutionally prohibited: (1) “the nature of the prior right impaired by
the statute”; (2) “the extent of the impairment”; and (3) “the nature and
strength of the public interest served by the statute as evidenced by the
Legislature’s factual findings.”
Id. at 145. The Court cautioned courts not
to weigh the general “public advantage” of a retroactive law against the
“relatively small impact on private interests,” else the clause “would be
deprived of most of its force.”
Id. at 146. Rather, “[t]here must be a
compelling public interest to overcome the heavy presumption against
retroactive laws.”
Id. That being said, the Court also acknowledged that it
has invalidated laws as unconstitutionally retroactive only a few times, so it
told courts to “be careful to enforce the constitutional prohibition to
safeguard its objectives.”
Id.
Fire Protection had an agreement to sell Survitec’s life rafts, but the
Texas Dealers Act added obligations the parties did not originally agree to in
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their contract. Since Robinson, the Supreme Court of Texas has not come
across a case like this one. That is precisely why we certified a remarkably
similar question a few years ago, which the Court graciously accepted, but
the parties settled before the Court could answer it. See Associated Mach. Tool
Techs. v. Doosan Infracore Am., Inc., 745 F. App’x 535, 539 (5th Cir. 2018).
Were we to say that application of the Texas Dealers Act to the contract
between Fire Protection and Survitec violates the Texas Constitution’s
retroactivity clause, we would be Erie-guessing our way into uncharted
waters. See Frank Chang, You Have Not Because You Ask Not: Why Federal
Courts Do Not Certify Questions of State Law to State Courts,
85 Geo. Wash.
L. Rev. 251, 265–68, 276–77 (2017) (discussing the advantages of certification
and disadvantages of Erie-guessing under such circumstances).
Beyond the closeness of the question and the dearth of on-point
precedent, considerations of comity counsel in favor of certification. As the
Court was keen to emphasize in Robinson, “courts must be mindful that
statutes are not to be set aside lightly.” 335 S.W.3d at 146. That is even truer
for us, as we are being asked to apply a state constitutional provision to
prevent the application of state law to a contract which is itself a creature of
state law. In the spirit of “cooperative judicial federalism,” we think it better
to let Texas’s high court say what Texas law is, rather than us saying what
we think they would say. See McMillan v. Amazon.com, Inc.,
983 F.3d 194,
202 (5th Cir. 2020). The justices of the Supreme Court of Texas are far
better-suited than we are to make such a determination, and we are better off
riding their robe-tails to the right result here.
The last thing we consider is the practical limitations of certification.
None are in play here. Fire Protection’s motion for certification was
unopposed, and certifying this question early on avoids the hassle of having
to argue this case twice. Nor is there any concern of delay. The Supreme
Court of Texas has graciously accepted and promptly answered our questions
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time and again. McMillan, 983 F.3d at 203. We have every confidence that
it will do so here too.
III.
IT IS ORDERED that Appellant’s unopposed motion to certify a
state-law question to the Supreme Court of Texas is GRANTED. We
certify the following question of state law to the Supreme Court of Texas:
Does the application of the Texas Dealers Act to
the parties’ agreement violate the retroactivity
clause in article I, section 16 of the Texas
Constitution?
We disclaim any intention or desire that the Court confine its reply to the
precise form or scope of the question certified.
QUESTION CERTIFIED.
A True Copy
Certified Nov 22, 2021
Clerk, U.S. Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit
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