Opinion ID: 1987708
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Reconciling the Standards

Text: Having noted the dual lines of authority stating the scope of no-evidence review, and the proper application and exceptions to each, we turn to the question of which one is correct. For the reasons discussed below, we believe the answer is both.
Whether a court begins by reviewing all the evidence or disregarding part in a legal-sufficiency review, there can be no disagreement about where that review should end. If the evidence at trial would enable reasonable and fair-minded people to differ in their conclusions, then jurors must be allowed to do so. [112] A reviewing court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the trier-of-fact, so long as the evidence falls within this zone of reasonable disagreement. [113] Similarly, there is no disagreement about how a reviewing court should view evidence in the process of that review. Whether a reviewing court starts with all or only part of the record, the court must consider evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, and indulge every reasonable inference that would support it. [114] But if the evidence allows of only one inference, neither jurors nor the reviewing court may disregard it. [115] Given these premises, it is no coincidence that the two standards should reach the same result  indeed they must. Any scope of appellate review smaller than what reasonable jurors could believe will reverse some verdicts that are perfectly reasonable; any scope of review larger than what reasonable jurors could believe will affirm some verdicts that are not. Further, the two must coincide if this Court is to perform its constitutional duties. Although factual sufficiency has been the sole domain of the intermediate appellate courts in Texas since 1891, our jurisdiction has always included legal sufficiency, as that is a question of law, not of fact. [116] Construing either standard to require us to do less would be just as unconstitutional as construing either to allow us to do more. This is not to say judges and lawyers will always agree whether evidence is legally sufficient. As discussed more fully below, reasonable people may disagree about what reasonable jurors could or must believe. But once those boundaries are settled, any standard of review must coincide with those boundaries  affirming jury verdicts based on evidence within them and reversing jury verdicts based on evidence that is not. Any standard that does otherwise is improperly applied.
Just as the scope of no-evidence review must coincide with its goals, the scope of review should not depend upon the motion in which it is asserted. Judgment without or against a jury verdict is proper at any course of the proceedings only when the law does not allow reasonable jurors to decide otherwise. Accordingly, the test for legal sufficiency should be the same for summary judgments, directed verdicts, judgments notwithstanding the verdict, and appellate no-evidence review. Our statements of the standard for reviewing a directed verdict present the same mixed bag found with general no-evidence review. We have most often used the exclusive standard, stating that courts reviewing directed verdicts must consider only evidence supporting the nonmovant's case and disregard all contrary evidence. [117] But we have also stated that reviewing courts should use the inclusive standard, considering all the evidence in a light contrary to the directed verdict. [118] And we have sometimes stated both, requiring reviewing courts to consider all the evidence in a light contrary to the directed verdict and then to disregard all conflicting evidence that supports it. [119] By contrast, cases concerning judgments non obstante verdicto most often utilize the inclusive scope of review. Beginning with the 1931 amendment authorizing trial judges to grant them, [120] we have generally reviewed such orders by considering all the evidence in a light favorable to the verdict that was set aside. [121] In later years we have sometimes adopted the exclusive standard, [122] but our opinions doing so usually cite to general no-evidence cases in which no judgment n.o.v. was involved. [123] The one exception in which both standards do not expressly appear is in the scope of review for summary judgments. Here, there is only one standard  a reviewing court must examine the entire record in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, indulging every reasonable inference and resolving any doubts against the motion. [124] Reviewing courts do not disregard the evidence supporting the motion; if they did, all summary judgments would be reversed. In practice, however, a different scope of review applies when a summary judgment motion is filed without supporting evidence. [125] In such cases, evidence supporting the motion is effectively disregarded because there is none; under the rule, it is not allowed. Thus, although a reviewing court must consider all the summary judgment evidence on file, in some cases that review will effectively be restricted to the evidence contrary to the motion. The standards for taking any case from the jury should be the same, no matter what motion is used. If only one standard were proper, we would not expect both to appear in cases reviewing directed verdicts, judgments notwithstanding the verdict, and summary judgments. But both do.
The federal courts have had a similar split of authority between the inclusive and exclusive standards for scope of review. But no longer  the United States Supreme Court recently concluded in Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. that the two tests are the same. [126] Under Rule 50 of the federal rules of procedure, a court should render judgment as a matter of law when there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for a reasonable jury to find for that party on that issue. [127] In deciding whether all or only part of the evidence should be considered, the Supreme Court stated: The Courts of Appeals have articulated differing formulations as to what evidence a court is to consider in ruling on a Rule 50 motion. Some decisions have stated that review is limited to that evidence favorable to the nonmoving party, while most have held that review extends to the entire record, drawing all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmovant. On closer examination, this conflict seems more semantic than real. Those decisions holding that review under Rule 50 should be limited to evidence favorable to the nonmovant appear to have their genesis in Wilkerson v. McCarthy [ [128] ]. In Wilkerson, we stated that in passing upon whether there is sufficient evidence to submit an issue to the jury we need look only to the evidence and reasonable inferences which tend to support the case of the nonmoving party.[ [129] ] But subsequent decisions have clarified that this passage was referring to the evidence to which the trial court should give credence, not the evidence that the court should review. In the analogous context of summary judgment under Rule 56, we have stated that the court must review the record taken as a whole. And the standard for granting summary judgment mirrors the standard for judgment as a matter of law, such that the inquiry under each is the same. It therefore follows that, in entertaining a motion for judgment as a matter of law, the court should review all of the evidence in the record. [130] We address the Supreme Court's conclusion as to the most appropriate standard below; the relevant point here is its conclusion that differences between the inclusive and exclusive standards are more semantic than real.
While we have used the two standards for the scope of review interchangeably for many years in many different contexts, several arguments suggest they are not the same. First, the courts of appeals often use the two standards in illustrations of the difference between legal and factual sufficiency, with the exclusive standard tied to the former and the inclusive standard to the latter: When [reviewing] legal sufficiency, we consider only the evidence and inferences that tend to support the award of damages and disregard all evidence and inferences to the contrary.... When we review factual sufficiency, we consider and weigh all of the evidence and will set aside the verdict only if it is so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence that it is clearly wrong and unjust. [131] But there have always been exceptions to this distinction. [132] As demonstrated in Parts II and III above, it is generally true that the result of legal-sufficiency review is to disregard contrary evidence, but there are exceptions when a reviewing court cannot. It is not surprising that in drawing the general distinction between legal and factual sufficiency, courts have not complicated that distinction by listing the several exceptions in which the scope of review  though not the standard of review  may overlap. Second, it has been argued that the exclusive standard is an important prophylactic against invasion of the jury's province, as appellate judges are less likely to consider contrary evidence when they should not if the exclusive standard is used. [133] But if that is true, the opposite should also be the case  appellate courts are less likely to consider contrary evidence when they must (as shown in Part II) if the exclusive standard is used. No matter which standard is used, appellate courts must take care not to consider or disregard too little or too much. Conversely, several factors appear to favor application of the inclusive standard. First, when we have said we must look only at that evidence which tends to support the judgment, [134] we could not have been speaking literally; no glasses filter evidence, and judges cannot abandon such judgments to law clerks or litigants. It is often hard to say whether evidence does or does not support a verdict  the same facts may support different conclusions, [135] or may support one part of a verdict but not another. [136] Nor can evidence supporting a verdict be identified by which party offered it  parties depend on admissions and cross-examination during their opponent's case, and minimize damaging evidence by presenting it during their own. As a practical matter, a court cannot begin to say what evidence supports a verdict without reviewing it all. Second, an appellate court that begins by disregarding one party's evidence may strike many citizens as extending something less than justice for all. Concerns about open government and open courts suggest an appellate process that considers all the evidence, though deferring to the jury's verdict. While there is some dispute whether Lady Justice should wear a blindfold, [137] the metaphor was surely never intended to suggest that justice disregards the facts. In sum, the exclusive standard is helpful in recognizing the distinctive roles of judge and jury, intermediate and supreme court. By contrast, the inclusive standard is helpful in recognizing what courts actually do, and must be seen to do. Both are important; we should avoid choosing between them if we can.
As both the inclusive and exclusive standards for the scope of legal-sufficiency review have a long history in Texas, as both have been used in other contexts to review matter-of-law motions, as the federal courts have decided the differences between the two are more semantic than real, and as both  properly applied  must arrive at the same result, we see no compelling reason to choose among them. The key qualifier, of course, is properly applied. The final test for legal sufficiency must always be whether the evidence at trial would enable reasonable and fair-minded people to reach the verdict under review. Whether a reviewing court begins by considering all the evidence or only the evidence supporting the verdict, legal-sufficiency review in the proper light must credit favorable evidence if reasonable jurors could, and disregard contrary evidence unless reasonable jurors could not. While judges and lawyers often disagree about legal sufficiency in particular cases, the disagreements are almost always about what evidence jurors can or must credit and what inferences they can or must make. It is inevitable in human affairs that reasonable people sometimes disagree; thus, it is also inevitable that they will sometimes disagree about what reasonable people can disagree about. This is not a new problem; Justice Calvert noted it almost fifty years ago: The rule as generally stated is that if reasonable minds cannot differ from the conclusion that the evidence lacks probative force it will be held to be the legal equivalent of no evidence. The application of the rule can lead to strange results. It is theoretically possible, and sometimes not far from actual fact, that five members of the Supreme Court will conclude that the evidence supporting a finding of a vital fact has no probative force, and in reaching the conclusion through application of the rule will thus hold, in effect, that the trial judge who overruled a motion for instructed verdict, the twelve jurors who found the existence of the vital fact, the three justices of the Court of Civil Appeals who overruled a no evidence point of error and four dissenting justices of the Supreme Court are not men [138] of reasonable minds. [139] It is not hubris that occasionally requires an appellate court to find a jury verdict has no reasonable evidentiary basis. As Justice Frankfurter stated long ago: Only an incompetent or a wilful judge would take a case from the jury when the issue should be left to the jury. But since questions of negligence are questions of degree, often very nice differences of degree, judges of competence and conscience have in the past, and will in the future, disagree whether proof in a case is sufficient to demand submission to the jury. The fact that [one] thinks there was enough to leave the case to the jury does not indicate that the other [is] unmindful of the jury's function. The easy but timid way out for a trial judge is to leave all cases tried to a jury for jury determination, but in so doing he fails in his duty to take a case from the jury when the evidence would not warrant a verdict by it. A timid judge, like a biased judge, is intrinsically a lawless judge. [140]