Italian Cowboy Partners, Ltd. v. Prudential Insurance Co. of America

in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice WAINWRIGHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice JOHNSON, and Justice LEHRMANN joined.

We recognized decades ago that agreeing to a merger clause does not waive the right to sue for fraud should a party later discover that the representations it relied upon before signing the contract were fraudulent. See Dallas Farm Mach. Co. v. Reaves, 158 Tex. 1, 307 S.W.2d 233, 239 (1957) (quoting Bates v. Southgate, 308 Mass. 170, 31 N.E.2d 551, 558 (1941)). The principal issue in this case is whether disclaimer-of-representations language within a lease contract amounts to a…