John H. Carney & Associates v. Ishfaq Ahmad, 07-15-00252-CV

Carney (attorney) represented Ahmad in a divorce matter pursuant to a written fee agreement; Carney later withdrew and filed a petition in intervention seeking unpaid fees.
Carney sought $32,903.27 in fees, of which $11,051.48 remained unpaid; at trial he relied on summary billing exhibits but did not introduce itemized billing statements.
Carney served Requests for Admission in February 2013 but did not serve Ahmad’s later-appearing counsel (Fulton) or file a Certificate of Written Discovery; Fulton entered the case March 6, 2013 and remained counsel through trial.
On the eve of trial (May 21, 2014) Carney filed deemed admissions with the court and attempted to use them at trial; the trial court sustained Ahmad’s objection and withdrew the deemed admissions as unfair and prejudicial.
At trial Carney and his office manager testified about fees and billing summaries, but the trial court found the evidence lacked sufficient detail to determine whether the claimed fees were reasonable and necessary.
The trial court rendered a take-nothing judgment; Carney appealed arguing (1) the court abused discretion in denying fees and (2) the court erred in withdrawing deemed admissions.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether trial court abused discretion by denying Carney attorney fees for failure to prove reasonableness/necessity	Carney: testimony, summaries, and documents sufficiently proved reasonableness and necessity (invoking Ragsdale exception for uncontradicted interested-witness testimony)	Ahmad: Carney produced only summary sheets and lacked itemized bills or detailed testimony tying tasks/hours to reasonableness; evidence was insufficient	Held: No abuse of discretion — court reasonably found Carney’s evidence too vague to establish fees were reasonable and necessary and therefore properly denied fees
Whether court abused discretion by withdrawing deemed admissions	Carney: no good cause to withdraw; admissions should have stood	Ahmad: good cause existed because Fulton and Ahmad were not on notice of the requests; failure to answer was not intentional or due to conscious indifference; withdrawal caused no undue prejudice	Held: No abuse of discretion — court properly withdrew deemed admissions for good cause and to avoid unfair prejudice

Ridge Oil Co., Inc. v. Guinn Invs., Inc., 148 S.W.3d 143 (Tex. 2004) (attorney-fee awards reviewed for abuse of discretion)
Ragsdale v. Progressive Voters League, 801 S.W.2d 880 (Tex. 1990) (exception when uncontradicted interested-witness testimony is clear, direct, and positive)
Wheeler v. Green, 157 S.W.3d 439 (Tex. 2005) (standard for withdrawing deemed admissions—good cause and no undue prejudice)
Arthur Andersen & Co. v. Perry Equip. Corp., 945 S.W.2d 812 (Tex. 1997) (factors for determining reasonable attorney’s fees)
Cochran v. Wool Growers Central Storage Co., 166 S.W.2d 904 (Tex. 1942) (treatment of uncontradicted interested-witness testimony)
Smith v. Patrick W.Y. Tam Trust, 296 S.W.3d 545 (Tex. 2009) (role of factfinder in assessing attorney-fee reasonableness)