News

In February 2022, just before a sales representative and his former employer were about to start a jury trial over his claim for over $200,000 in unpaid sales commissions, the parties settled the dispute on confidential terms.

In that case, Cause No. 19-E-0107 in the 130th Judicial District Court of Matagorda County, the sales rep alleged that he had sold a multi-million dollar construction project and that the company owner had even agreed to his structured payout on the sales commissions that would result from the project. However, the company then terminated the sales rep and claimed that he had no right to future commissions on the past sale.

In this case, the company believed that they would be able to pocket his commission money as the future revenue from his sales came in. For the O’Brien Law Firm’s part, getting the best result for its client required a deep knowledge of Texas contract law, and especially what happens when the parties’ contract uses an “ambiguous” term – meaning, a word or phrase that can have more than one meaning. Ambiguities in key contract language can easily create a legal dispute between the parties when each side wants their own preferred interpretation of the word or phrase to control. Ambiguities in contract language have been the source of so many contract disputes throughout history.

Instead of simply accepting the employer’s abuse, the client hired the O’Brien Law Firm to push the client’s preferred (and of course, correct) interpretation of the contract in court and hold the employer accountable.