Opinion ID: 895053
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence of Wealth

Text: Even when a party's wealth has no logical relevance to a case, the prejudicial effect of such evidence often creates strong temptations to use it. As we have stated before, highlighting the relative wealth of a defendant has a very real potential for prejudicing the jury's determination of other disputed issues in a tort case. [3] To avoid such situations, Texas courts historically have been extremely cautious in admitting evidence of a party's wealth. [4] Even when wealth can be used on the issue of punitive damages, we take the unusual step of bifurcating a trial so that it cannot be used for any other purpose. [5] In this case, plaintiffs' counsel argued the evidence of gross revenues was admissible to show Reliance was not a mom and pop operation. Yet Reliance had never suggested to the jury that it was a mom and pop operation or could only pay a limited judgment; [6] the plaintiffs' effort to prove otherwise was simply an unsolicited attempt to show Reliance made a lot of money. Plaintiffs' counsel argued that gross revenues were relevant to show Reliance was negligent in running its drivers into the ground even though it was big enough to place more drivers on the road or have them work fewer hours. But the plaintiffs never pleaded such a theory; their Third Amended Petition alleged only a vicarious liability claim against Reliance for the negligent acts of its driver. Nor was such a claim necessary; if an employee drives when he is too tired, his employer is liable regardless of the reason for his condition. [7] But even if the plaintiffs had alleged or needed to prove that Reliance was independently negligent, for several reasons its gross sales had no tendency to make that claim more or less probable. [8] In the first place, the premise behind this argument is faulty because big companies cannot afford to be less efficient than small companies, at least not for long. Second, the negligence standard is an objective one; it does not generally allow smaller companies to do what bigger companies cannot. Third, a company with large revenues may still not be able to afford more drivers doing less work, because gross sales are only remotely related to its wealth until the company's expenses are subtracted. [9] Fourth, if a defendant's wealth is admissible to show that it could afford to avoid an accident, then wealth will be admissible in virtually every case, and there would be nothing left of the traditional rule to the contrary. We also reject the suggestion that evidence of Reliance's wealth was admissible because the defendants' attorneys asked several inappropriate questions about the size and newness of the plaintiffs' cars or home. Each time this occurred and an objection was made, the trial court sustained the objection and excluded the evidence. One party cannot violate the rules of evidence just because the other party tried to do the same, especially if the other party's evidence was excluded. The plaintiffs here were entitled to argue (and did) that Alvarado's hours were too long, but it was not Reliance's gross revenues that made them so. The plaintiffs offered no evidence that Reliance pushed its drivers harder than its competitors, or harder than regulations allowed. Reliance is not complaining about evidence that it had a lot of drivers; it only complains about evidence that it had a lot of money. We hold the trial court abused its discretion in allowing admission of Reliance's gross annual sales. [10]