Carl Daily v. Charles McMillan, 531 S.W.3d 822

McMillan sued Daily in justice court claiming $2,000 for removal of trees/stump grinding; justice court awarded McMillan and $3,000 in attorney’s fees; Daily appealed to county court at law for a trial de novo.
At the county court de novo jury trial, the jury found Daily breached an oral contract and awarded McMillan $2,000 in damages.
The jury also awarded $18,193.19 in attorney’s fees based on testimony and time sheets from McMillan’s attorney, David Potter, who testified he billed $250/hour, had worked 52.27 hours pre-trial (invoice $12,443.19) and expected an additional $5,750 for trial/post-trial work.
Daily did not object to the jury charge at trial and affirmatively stated he had no charge objections; he later appealed arguing jury-charge error and that the fee award lacked evidentiary support.
The trial court denied relief; on appeal the Sixth Court of Appeals (Texarkana) held Daily failed to preserve charge error and that the attorney-fee award was supported by legally sufficient evidence.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether jury-charge error (conditioning fee question on failure to pay vs. amount due) was preserved	McMillan: charge was proper and verdict shows damages were found before fees	Daily: Question 6 conditioned on Question 2 (nonpayment) rather than Question 5 (amount due); thus fees could be awarded without a finding of damages	Not preserved — Daily affirmatively waived objections at trial; appeal on charge error overruled
Whether evidence supported reasonableness and necessity of attorney’s fees	McMillan: Potter’s testimony and time sheets showed hours, work performed, hourly rate, and additional expected trial/post-trial work	Daily: Potter failed to present evidence of the customary local fee for similar services, so fee award lacked sufficient evidence	Sufficient — uncontroverted time sheets, testimony as to experience, hourly range ($200–$350) and work performed permitted reasonable juror finding of $18,193.19

Ashford Partners, Ltd. v. ECO Res., Inc., 401 S.W.3d 35 (Tex. 2012) (plaintiff must prevail and recover damages to recover fees under § 38.001)
Cruz v. Andrews Restoration, Inc., 364 S.W.3d 817 (Tex. 2012) (preservation rule for jury-charge complaints; must timely and plainly object)
City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802 (Tex. 2005) (legal-sufficiency standard for appellate review)
Arthur Andersen & Co. v. Perry Equip. Corp., 945 S.W.2d 812 (Tex. 1997) (factors for determining reasonableness of attorney’s fees)
Long v. Griffin, 442 S.W.3d 253 (Tex. 2014) (minimum evidence for fee award: services performed, who performed them, hourly rate, when performed, time required)
El Apple I, Ltd. v. Olivas, 370 S.W.3d 757 (Tex. 2012) (same evidentiary guidance for fee awards)
Smith v. Patrick W.Y. Tam Trust, 296 S.W.3d 545 (Tex. 2009) (reasonableness of fees is ordinarily for factfinder)
Jelinek v. Casas, 328 S.W.3d 526 (Tex. 2010) (definitions of legally insufficient evidence and standards)
Merrell Dow Pharms., Inc. v. Havner, 953 S.W.2d 706 (Tex. 1997) (more-than-a-scintilla standard explained)