Tommy Helms and Ken Helms v. Southwestern Bell Telephone Company

ROBERT MADDEN HILL, Circuit Judge:

This appeal requires us to determine whether a cause of action exists under either the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices-Consumer Protection Act [DTPA], Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. §§ 17.41-63 (Vernon Supp.1986), or the Texas common law of negligence whenever a contract to print telephone directory advertising is breached. We agree with the district court’s dismissal of the plaintiffs’ DTPA claims, but conclude that the district court erred in dismissing the negligence claim.

I

According to their assertions, in 1976 Tommy and Ken Helms formed a partnership know as…