Texas Business Court Decision – October 29, 2025
No. 25-BC01A-0013 Fiberwave, Inc. v. AT&T Enterprises, LLC (First Division, Judge Bouressa) 25-bc01a-0013-fiberwave-v-att-enterprises-2025-tex-bus-42.pdf
Civil case – Damages. The matter comes before the court on defendant AT&T’s motion for partial summary judgment on Fiberwave’s tort claims (the facts of which are not developed in the opinion). AT&T asserted Fiberwave’s claims for tortious interference with contract, defamation, and business disparagement claims were barred by a limitation-of-liability provision in the parties’ Alliance Program Agreement. The motion is granted in part and denied in part.
Held:
(1) Section 18.6 of the limitation-of-liability provision in the Agreement is not ambiguous, and it does not bar Fiberwave’s claims because the damages it seeks did not arise from AT&T’s termination of the agreement; the phrase
“arising from” must be read in context with another provision of the Agreement, where the parties used the words “arising out of or related to” rather than “arising from;” as a result, “arising from” must be read more narrowly, and cannot be read so broadly as to support AT&T’s argument that, but for the termination of the Alliance Program Agreement, Fiberwave would not have sustained any of its claimed damages; the Section does not categorically bar Fiberwave’s claims for damages attributable to AT&T’s alleged post-termination acts, namely, issuance of a press release and emails and posts on its website; these claims seek damages not attributable to the termination, and the Section does not bar the claims.
(2) However, Section 18.2 of the limitation-of-liability provision in the Agreements is an enforceable bar on incidental, consequential, and indirect damages and forecloses any recovery for business disparagement as a matter of law; special damages are a necessary element of a claim for business disparagement, and thus the claim is barred.
(3) But, while the Section bars recovery of any special damages or consequential damages, it does not bar recovery for general damages, such as can occur in claims for tortious interference with contract and defamation, at least to the extent the claims seek actual, general, direct damages; such damages are not barred by the plain language of Section 18.2 and need not be specifically identified in Fiberwave’s pleadings.