What happened: A Texas appeals court affirmed a take-nothing judgment against a restaurant's parent company despite a jury finding that the insurer also failed to comply with the policy
Who's involved: Solaija Enterprises (d/b/a TG's Cravings) and Amguard Insurance Company
What's at stake: The insured's entire claim - dollar amount unspecified in the opinion
Why it matters: Conditions precedent can override an insurer's own contractual failures, and a single procedural omission on appeal can lock that result in place
Where it stands: Affirmed by the Texas First District Court of Appeals on October 2, 2026
A jury agreed that Amguard Insurance Company failed to comply with its own policy. The policyholder still walked away with nothing.
The Texas First District Court of Appeals has affirmed a take-nothing judgment against Solaija Enterprises, the company behind restaurant TG's Cravings, in a coverage dispute with Amguard. The October 2 memorandum opinion turned not on who was right about the contract, but on what the policyholder failed to do - both during the claim and on appeal.
At trial in the 434th District Court in Fort Bend County, the jury delivered a split verdict. It found that Solaija had failed to meet certain conditions precedent in its insurance policy - the steps a policyholder must take before an insurer is obligated to pay. The jury also found Amguard was prejudiced by those failures.
Then it went further. The jury found Amguard itself had failed to comply with the insurance contract.
The trial court still entered a take-nothing judgment in Amguard's favor.
Solaija appealed, arguing the conditions precedent and prejudice questions should never have gone to the jury and that the evidence supported a recovery on the contract claim.
The appeals court never reached those arguments.
Texas appellate rules allow a party to file only a partial trial transcript - but it must include a formal statement listing the issues it plans to raise. Solaija filed a partial record containing trial exhibits and the jury charge conference. No trial testimony. No statement of issues.
That triggered a hard presumption: everything missing from the record is treated as supporting the trial court's judgment. Without testimony, the court could not review whether the evidence was sufficient. And because the presumption applied, the court had to treat the absent testimony as if it backed the verdict.
The same logic defeated the jury charge argument. Assessing whether a charge error caused harm requires the full trial record. With the gaps presumed to favour the judgment, the court found no basis to reverse.
The panel affirmed in full.
For claims handlers and coverage professionals, the result illustrates how conditions precedent can override an insurer's own contractual failures at trial - and how a single procedural omission on appeal can lock that result in place.
