Opinion ID: 895280
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The statute requires courts to evaluate settling persons at the time of submission.

Text: Former section 33.011the statutory provision applicable heredefined settling person as: a person who at the time of submission has paid or promised to pay money or anything of monetary value to a claimant at any time in consideration of potential liability ... with respect to the personal injury, property damage, death, or other harm for which recovery of damages is sought. Act of June 3, 1987, 70th Leg., 1st C.S., ch. 2, § 2.07, 1987 Tex. Gen. Laws 37, 41 (amended in 1995 and 2003) (current version at TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM.CODE § 33.011) (emphasis added). Because the statute stipulated that a settling person was one who, at the time of submission of the jury question, had paid or promised to pay, reviewing courts cannot consider a post-submission monetary exchange when determining whether a party was a settling person. See Knowlton v. U.S. Brass Corp., 864 S.W.2d 585, 598 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1993) ([A] party who settles after objections are made to the charge, after the charge is read to the jury, and after closing arguments, although before the jury begins deliberating, is not a settling person because the settlement had not been effected at the time of submission. ), aff'd in part and rev'd in part on other grounds, sub nom. Amstadt v. U.S. Brass Corp., 919 S.W.2d 644 (Tex. 1996); Gilcrease v. Garlock, Inc., 211 S.W.3d 448, 454-55 (Tex.App.-El Paso 2006, no pet.) (holding that settlement agreements cannot be contingent on any other outcome, at the time of submission, in order to satisfy chapter 33). At the time the proportionate responsibility question was submitted to the jury, and throughout the course of the trial, Hinton had not settled any claims with Central Texas, and the funds that Central Texas placed in an interest-bearing account were never promised to any particular claimant. The bankruptcy court rejected the notion that the funds had a guaranteed trajectory, pointing to various contingencies, including the possibility that some [of the claims] could be adjusted to zero. As a historical fact, of course, each participant in the Litigation Plan received within two percent of the amount determined by the mediator, with one exception, 329 S.W.3d at 502, and the Plaintiffs negotiated for and were the ultimate recipients of some of these proceeds, id. at 501. But those facts chronicle Hinton's status after submission, which is irrelevant under the statute. The trial court appropriately viewed Hinton's status at the time of submission, as no one could have known at that point whether Hinton would recover any of the remaining funds.