Case Name: John Dale MACLAY, Appellant, v. KELSEY-SEYBOLD CLINIC, Appellee
Court: Texas Courts of Civil Appeals
Jurisdiction: Texas
Decision Date: 1970-04-09
Citations: 456 S.W.2d 229
Docket Number: No. 15614
Parties: John Dale MACLAY, Appellant, v. KELSEY-SEYBOLD CLINIC, Appellee.
Judges: 
Reporter: South Western Reporter Second Series
Volume: 456
Pages: 229–234

Head Matter:
John Dale MACLAY, Appellant, v. KELSEY-SEYBOLD CLINIC, Appellee.
No. 15614.
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Houston (1st Dist.).
April 9, 1970.
Rehearing Denied June 18, 1970.
Robert L. Dabney, Jr., Houston, Austin, Dabney & Northrop, Houston, of counsel, for appellant.'
Robert M. Welch, Jr., Dan G. Matthews, Houston, Fulbright, Crooker, Freeman, Bates & Jaworski, Houston, of counsel, for appellee.

Opinion:
PEDEN, Justice.
Alienation of affections case. Plaintiff sued both Dr. Brewer and Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, a medical partnership of which Dr. Brewer was a partner. Plaintiff has perfected this appeal from the granting of a summary judgment in favor of the clinic. The cause of action against Dr. Brewer has been severed and is still pending.
The petition of the plaintiff, John Ma-clay, alleged that both Dr. Earl J. Brewer, Jr. and the Clinic had treated him, his wife and their children medically for several years and that Dr. Brewer, as a pediatrician and one of the partners in the Clinic, had been the doctor to whom his wife had taken their children. That beginning in late 1966, Dr. Brewer conceived and entered into a scheme to alienate the affections of the plaintiff's wife, Mrs. Maria Maclay, showering his attentions and gifts upon her until April or May of 1967, when her affections for the plaintiff were alienated as a direct result of Dr. Brewer's actions, causing her to separate from the plaintiff.
The appellant's petition further alleged that Dr. Brewer's actions designed to alienate the affections of Mrs. Maclay were made while he was acting as medical doctor for the plaintiff's family in the course and scope of his employment as a partner in the Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, and included certain actions that allegedly occurred between November, 1966 and June, 1968. That the Clinic, through Dr. Kelsey, its managing partner, had knowledge since before April, 1967, of such actions by Dr. Brewer while the partners were the treating doctors for the plaintiff and his family, and that the partnership consented to, ratified and condoned such conduct of its partner and refused to try to halt or disapprove of his actions.
The plaintiff seeks actual and exemplary damages from the defendants jointly, severally and individually for the loss of consortium and affections of his wife.
On October 27, 1969 the trial judge signed an order granting the second motion for summary judgment filed by defendant Kelsey-Seybold Clinic. Its first motion had been denied.
The plaintiff urges two points of error. They are:
1. Appellee, having failed to clearly show that there were absolutely no fact issues upon which it could be held liable, while standing in a fiduciary relation to appellant, his wife, and his family, with its partner and co-fiduciary, Dr. Brewer, for Brewer's breach of trust in alienating the affections of appellant's wife, either before or after the clinic knew of it and under the other circumstances reflected by the record, the trial court erred in granting ap-pellee's second motion for summary judgment, and in entering judgment that appellant take nothing by his suit against the clinic.
2. Appellee's first motion for summary judgment having been overruled by the Honorable Ewing Werlein, presiding and the record before the trial court at the hearing on its second motion being identical to the record before Judge Werlein, the trial court erred in granting appellee's second motion for summary judgment and thus setting aside Judge Werlein's earlier ruling.
For the purpose of this summary judgment and appeal only, the Clinic concedes:
1) Dr. Brewer was a partner in the Clinic;
2) The Maclay family members were patients of the Clinic;
3) Dr. Brewer alienated Mrs. Maclay's affections.
4) Dr. Kelsey was informed in April, 1967 by Maclay that an improper relationship existed between Dr. Brewer and Mrs. Maclay.
The Clinic has offered no affirmative defenses. The question on appeal is whether the summary judgment proof establishes as a matter of law that there is no genuine issue of fact as to one or more of the essential elements of the plaintiff's cause of action. Rule 166-A(c), Texas Rules of Civil Procedure; Gibbs v. General Motors Corp., 450 S.W.2d 827 (Tex.1970).
The summary judgment evidence in this case includes the depositions of three persons: Dr. Mavis Kelsey, chairman of the staff of the Clinic, Helen Brown, a nurse who began working at the Clinic and with Dr. Brewer on March 25, 1968 (two weeks after plaintiff's original petition was filed) and James Bakken, administrator of the Clinic. It does not include any depositions of Dr. Brewer or of Mrs. Maria Maclay. It does include the Clinic's medical records of the Maclay family and an affidavit of all the members of the executive committee of the Clinic except Dr. Brewer, stating that such committee is charged with responsibility for setting policy for the partnership, that the business of the partnership is that of operating a medical clinic, that Dr. Brewer was not authorized by the partnership at any time to do any act which might result in the alienation of the affections of Maria Maclay from her husband and that the partnership had done no act with the purpose, intent or design to alienate her affections.
Nurse Helen Brown's deposition does not negative any issue of fact as to any essential element of the plaintiff's cause of action. She was able to testify only that she did not know of the occurrence of any of the alleged events; she could not say that they did not occur.
In Dr. Kelsey's deposition he stated, among other things, that he is chairman of the staff of the Clinic. That he treated the plaintiff ten or fifteen years ago and other doctors in the Clinic have treated him and his wife and children since then. That at some time in the spring of 1967 the plaintiff complained to him that Dr. Brewer was having an affair with Mrs. Maclay and at about the same time a doctor related to Mrs. Maclay also called him about the same matter. He stated that he did not talk to Dr. Brewer about it until after this suit had been filed. He did not believe it possible that improper acts happened in the Clinic, and he couldn't possibly keep up with the private lives, outside the Clinic, of over fifty doctors. That the Clinic has not adopted a policy of intentionally alienating Mrs. Maclay's affections. Whenever a female patient is examined or treated by a doctor in the Clinic, a nurse is always present. That the partners wouldn't put up with any improper acts in the Clinic. That Maclay told him when he called that he and his wife had separated.
Dr. Kelsey also stated that his impression of the purpose of the plaintiff's two telephone calls was to seek sympathy. That the plaintiff had not asked him to do anything and that he had not done anything.
The deposition testimony of Mr. Bakken does not establish as a matter of law any fact with which this appeal is concerned.
The gist of an alientation of affections action is the intentional or purposeful alienation of the affections of one spouse from the other. Williams v. Rearick, 218 S.W.2d 225 (Tex.Civ.App.1949, no writ); Collier v. Perry, 149 S.W.2d 292 (Tex.Civ.App.1941, err. dism. judg. corr.); 30 Tex.Jur.2d 241, Husband and Wife, § 153.
"A non-participating partner is ordinarily not personally liable for the wrongful, tortious or criminal acts of the acting partner unless such acts are within the scope of the partnership's business or were consented to, authorized, ratified or adopted by the non-participating partner." K & G Oil Tool & Service Co. v. G & G Fishing Tool Service, 158 Tex. 594, 314 S. W.2d 782, 793 (Tex.Sup.1958); 68 C.J.S. Partnership § 168, page 617.
An affidavit made by the plaintiff was filed in opposition to the Clinic's motion for summary judgment. In it Maclay stated that he had called Dr. Kelsey to ask if he was aware that Dr. Brewer had a romantic interest with Mrs. Maclay and that Dr. Kelsey said he was aware of it and had talked to a relative of Mrs. Maclay's about it.
We sustain the appellant's first point of error. The Clinic has not established as a matter of law that there is no genuine issue of fact as to an essential element of the plaintiff's cause of action: namely, whether it had consented to the alleged wrongful conduct of Dr. Brewer.
In view of our holding it is not necessary for us to reach the appellant's other arguments under his first point or his second point.
The judgment of the trial court is reversed and this cause is remanded.