Two hotel owners became reasonably upset after spending millions building out a downtown Houston Holiday Inn only to lose their franchise license agreement, so they sued the national chain in a Houston federal court.

But Dallas lawyer Deborah Coldwell recently made quick work the breach of contract and fraud claims lodged against Holiday Hospitality Franchising—the company that licenses Holiday Inn hotels —by not only convincing a U.S. district judge to dismiss those claims but also to block the plaintiffs from repleading them again.

Jay Z. Dalwadi and Jay Shree Kapi Hospitality alleged in their lawsuit that before they signed an initial license agreement with Holiday Inn in 2000, they were assured by the hotel chain that franchisee agreements get renewed “almost automatically” as long as the franchisee is in compliance with the agreement. But then in 2013, Holiday Inn notified the franchisees that the company had received applications to build a new hotel in downtown Houston and did not renew Dalwadi and Kapi's license. The plaintiffs kept operating their own hotel “without a flag,” causing its value to diminish by more than a million dollars, according to the complaint they filed against the hotel chain in 2016.