Breach of Contract
Houston Breach of Contract Lawyers for Businesses & Individuals
Berg PC helps Texas businesses and individuals enforce contracts, recover damages, and defend against breach-of-contract claims from the first demand letter through trial.
When a vendor stops delivering, a partner walks away from a signed deal, or a buyer refuses to close, you may be facing a breach of contract dispute.
In addition to the financial impact, you may experience other repercussions. You may have restructured your operations, turned down opportunities, or spent money while relying on the other side’s performance.
An experienced breach of contract attorney at Berg PC can work quickly to maximize your leverage and try the case.
What Breach of Contract Means in Texas
A breach of contract occurs when one party to a binding agreement fails to perform its obligations under that agreement without a legally valid excuse. To pursue a breach of contract claim in Texas, you generally need to establish four things: a valid contract existed, you performed your own obligations (or had a valid reason not to), the other party failed to perform, and that failure caused you damages.
Contract disputes in Texas tend to turn on a handful of contested questions: whether the agreement was actually binding, what the terms meant, whether performance was excused, and what damages flow from the breach. Our contract dispute attorneys can help you answer those questions.
Types of Breach Texas Courts Recognize
A material breach is a failure significant enough to excuse you from your own obligations under the contract and entitle you to damages. An anticipatory breach — sometimes called anticipatory repudiation — occurs when the other party clearly signals they won’t perform before the deadline arrives. You don’t have to wait for the breach to occur to act on it. An immaterial or minor breach doesn’t excuse your own performance, but may still entitle you to damages if you can show actual harm.
Beyond the breach itself, experienced contract litigators look at what defenses the other side will raise: impossibility of performance, frustration of purpose, failure of consideration, substantial performance, and mutual mistake are all arguments the opposing party may try to use to limit or eliminate your recovery. A strong plaintiff’s case anticipates those defenses and takes them off the table early.
Situations We Handle
Breach-of-contract disputes come in many forms. Some of the most common we see include:
- A vendor, supplier, or service provider failed to deliver, or delivered something materially different from what was agreed, and you need to recover what you lost and get out of the relationship
- A business partner or co-owner walked away from a partnership or operating agreement mid-deal, leaving you to absorb the loss
- A buyer refused to close on a real estate transaction, a business acquisition, or a sale of assets after the contract was signed
- A former employee or contractor violated a non-disclosure, non-solicitation, or non-compete agreement and took clients, trade secrets, or key personnel with them
- A construction or professional services contractor billed for work that wasn’t done, or performed it so poorly that the work has to be redone
- Another party is claiming you breached the contract, and you need a trial lawyer who is ready to defend your case
- A commercial lease dispute has escalated, with a landlord or tenant threatening litigation or already filing
If your situation doesn’t fall into one of these categories, that’s typical. Tell us about your case, and we’ll let you know if we can help.
Our Approach
We prepare every breach-of-contract case as if it’s going to trial.
Most commercial disputes settle before trial. But what they settle for, and when, depends almost entirely on what the other side believes you’re actually willing to do. When opposing counsel knows the attorney on the other side has tried complex cases to verdict for 30+ years, the case is valued differently from the first demand letter onward.
That trial-from-day-one posture shapes everything: how discovery is framed, which documents get preserved, which witnesses are identified early, and how damages are documented. We build the evidentiary record before the other side has a chance to shape the narrative.
We represent both plaintiffs and defendants in contract disputes. If you’re facing a breach of contract claim, you need the same quality of trial preparation that plaintiffs get.
Geoff Berg has spent more than 30 years litigating complex commercial disputes in Texas and beyond. Best Lawyers in America® has recognized him in Commercial Litigation for 10 consecutive years. That record shapes how opposing parties approach every case we take.
What You Can Recover
Texas law gives breach of contract plaintiffs several paths to recovery, depending on what the contract provided and what the breach actually cost you.
Actual damages compensate you for the losses the breach directly caused, including lost profits, additional costs you incurred to cover the other side’s failure, and money you paid for performance you didn’t receive.
Consequential damages cover losses beyond the direct economic harm, as long as they were reasonably foreseeable at the time the contract was signed. Loss of business opportunities, damage to customer relationships, and downstream operational costs can all fall under this category if the facts support it.
Specific performance is a court order requiring the breaching party to actually perform their obligations. This is most common in real estate transactions and other agreements where money can’t adequately substitute for performance.
Rescission unwinds the contract entirely. All obligations end, and the parties are restored to their pre-agreement status.
Attorney’s fees are recoverable in Texas contract cases when the contract provides for them, or under Chapter 38 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code for certain types of claims. Fee recovery significantly changes the economics of the dispute.
No case is guaranteed a certain outcome, but Berg PC’s breach of contract lawyers have won or saved clients over $100 million throughout the firm’s history.
Texas Deadlines
In Texas, most breach of contract claims are subject to a four-year statute of limitations, meaning you generally have four years from the date of the breach to file suit. For written contracts, the clock starts when the breach occurred. For oral contracts, the same four-year period applies, though the starting point can be disputed.
If the breach was concealed, or if you didn’t discover it until later, Texas’s discovery rule may toll the limitations period, giving you time from when you knew or reasonably should have known about the breach. That exception isn’t automatic and has limits; courts apply it narrowly.
For contracts with shorter limitations periods written into the agreement itself, or for claims arising under specific Texas statutes that may travel alongside your contract claim, different deadlines apply.
Why Berg PC
We’re a boutique Houston trial firm with 130+ years of combined experience and a track record that reflects what happens when boutique attention meets serious trial capability. Clients bring us their contract disputes because:
- We try cases. Not every commercial litigator will. We prepare for trial from day one, which changes what the other side is willing to offer and how quickly they’re willing to offer it.
- Flat monthly retainers are available. Business litigation is expensive. Part of what makes it so disruptive is that clients can’t predict what next month’s invoice will look like. For qualifying matters, we offer flat monthly retainer arrangements that make the cost of pursuing or defending your case predictable.
- You work with the attorneys on your case. We’re a boutique firm. The lawyers who handle your case are the ones you talk to.
- Nationally renowned. Our cases have been featured in the New York Times, CNN, ABC News, Washington Post, HBO, Today Show, NBC Nightly News, Fox News, Los Angeles Times, CBS News, Wired, Houston Chronicle, Philadelphia Tribune, New York Post, and many other media outlets.
Contact Our Breach of Contract Lawyers in Houston, TX
Breach-of-contract cases reward early preparation and punish delay. Tell us about your case. A member of our team will review what you send and get back to you to discuss whether your matter is a fit for the firm.
