Opinion ID: 2829186
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Was the Trial Court’s Definition of Producing Cause Erroneous?

Text: Transcontinental contends that the trial court gave an erroneous definition of producing cause in its jury charge. We agree. “The court shall submit such instructions and definitions as shall be proper to enable the jury to render a verdict.” Tex. R. Civ. P. 277. “An instruction is proper if it (1) assists the jury, (2) accurately states the law, and (3) finds support in the pleadings and evidence.” Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Williams , 85 S.W.3d 162, 166 (Tex. 2002) (citing Tex. R. Civ. P . 278). When, as here, the content of a trial court’s definition is challenged as legally incorrect, our standard of review is de novo. See St. Joseph Hosp. v. Wolff , 94 S.W.3d 513, 525 (Tex. 2002). Though the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act does not use the phrase “producing cause,” 4 this has been the standard for proving causation in workers’ compensation claims for more than eighty years. 5 Courts generally agreed that the workers’ compensation causation standard was not to be as exacting as that of the common law, but no uniform definition of causation in the workers’ compensation context emerged. 6 As the law developed, courts recognized that the only substantial difference between the two standards was that a proximate cause—the common law standard—must be foreseeable. 7 We finally approved a definition of producing cause for workers’ compensation cases in 1943: Compensation is awarded to the legal beneficiary of the deceased employee if death results from the injury. Causal connection must be established between the injury and the death. The injury must be the producing cause of the death, and producing cause has been defined as that cause which, in a natural and continuous sequence, produces the death . . . in issue, and without which the death . . . would not have occurred. Jones v. Traders & Gen. Ins. Co. , 169 S.W.2d 160, 162 (Tex. 1943) (citation and quotation omitted). We have not addressed the matter since then. In a recent products liability case, however, we held that what had been “a frequently submitted definition of ‘producing cause’ should no longer be used.” Ford Motor Co. v. Ledesma , 242 S.W.3d 32, 35 (Tex. 2007). The trial court in that case had given the products liability pattern jury charge definition: “‘Producing cause’ means an efficient, exciting, or contributing cause that, in a natural sequence, produces the incident in question. There may be more than one producing cause.” Id. at 45. 8 Because we held that the trial court committed reversible error in a separate part of the charge, we reversed on that ground and remanded the case for new trial. Id. at 44. But to assist the parties and the court on remand, we further held that producing cause should be correctly defined as “a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred.” Id. at 46. The definition submitted by Crump and accepted at trial—“‘Producing Cause’ means an efficient, exciting, or contributing cause that, in a natural sequence, produces the death in question. There may be more than one producing cause.”—is the same as the pattern jury charge definition we rejected in Ledesma , substituting only “death” for “incident.” Transcontinental urges us now to adopt for workers’ compensation cases the same definition we approved in Ledesma for products liability cases. Crump asserts that the Ledesma definition of producing cause has no place in workers’ compensation law. Because we have not addressed the “substantial factor” terminology from products liability law in the context of workers’ compensation cases, we must decide whether our holding in Ledesma applies here. 9 In considering whether to apply Ledesma ’s definition, we first examine the causation standards for proximate cause and producing cause. “The two elements of proximate cause are cause in fact (or substantial factor) and foreseeability . . . . Cause in fact is established when the act or omission was a substantial factor in bringing about the injuries, and without it, the harm would not have occurred.” IHS Cedars Treatment Ctr. v. Mason , 143 S.W.3d 794, 798–99 (Tex. 2004). “The approved definition of ‘proximate cause’ in negligence cases and the approved definition of ‘producing cause’ in compensation cases are in substance the same, except that there is added to the definition of proximate cause the element of foreseeableness .” Staggs , 134 S.W.2d at 1028–29 . In other words, the producing cause inquiry is conceptually identical to that of cause in fact. We have recognized this in Deceptive Trade Practices Act cases. See, e.g. , Prudential Ins. Co. of Am. v. Jefferson Assocs., Ltd. , 896 S.W.2d 156, 161 (Tex. 1995) (“For DTPA violations, only producing cause must be shown. The element common to both proximate cause and producing cause is actual causation in fact. This requires proof that an act or omission was a substantial factor in bringing about injury which would not otherwise have occurred.”) ( citations omitted). Also, in Ledesma , a products liability case, we recognized that producing cause and cause in fact are conceptually identical. See 242 S.W.3d at 46 (“Defining producing cause as being a substantial factor in bringing about an injury, and without which the injury would not have occurred, is easily understood and conveys the essential components of producing cause that (1) the cause must be a substantial cause of the event in issue and (2) it must be a but -for cause, namely one without which the event would not have occurred.”). 1 0 The producing cause inquiry in workers’ compensation cases is conceptually no different from the cause in fact inquiry in negligence cases and the producing cause inquiry in other substantive contexts. We see no reason to define producing cause differently in this context. 1 1 Therefore, we hold that producing cause in workers’ compensation cases is defined as a substantial factor in bringing about an injury or death, and without which the injury or death would not have occurred. Having concluded that Ledesma applies to this case, we must determine whether the definition given here was erroneous. The definition of producing cause given by the trial court in this case is, in all relevant respects, the same as the pattern jury charge definition we rejected in Ledesma . See 242 S.W.3d at 45. Transcontinental cites Ledesma for the proposition that the use of the “efficient, exciting, or contributing cause” language is erroneous. We disagree. In Ledesma , we reasoned that those terms had no practical meaning to modern jurors in products liability cases. Id. at 46. We held that the use of those terms provides “little concrete guidance” to modern jurors, and a definition that omits either the substantial factor or but -for components “is incomplete.” Id. But we did not go so far as to say that employing the terms “efficient, exciting, or contributing cause” in a producing cause definition was, as Transcontinental suggests, erroneous. Thus, while the concerns about terminology “foreign to modern English” and incomplete definitions expressed in Ledesma apply equally to this case, the mere use of these terms is not, in itself, error. 1 2 Crump argues that the “substantial factor” component of the Ledesma definition imposes a higher causation burden upon workers’ compensation claimants than what exists at present. We disagree. We have always required in workers’ compensation cases a showing of “unbroken causal connection” between the compensable injury and the claimant’s injury or death. Staggs , 134 S.W.2d at 1030; see Jones , 169 S.W.2d at 162; Burnett , 105 S.W.2d at 202. Although, as the dissent points out, our earlier cases did not address the “substantial factor” terminology, there is nothing in those opinions to suggest that cause in fact should not be part of the causal connection analysis. See Jones , 169 S.W.2d at 162; Staggs , 134 S.W.2d at 1030 ; Burnett , 105 S.W.2d at 202. In fact, we cannot conceive of causal connection analysis without consideration of cause in fact. The substantial factor language serves only to illustrate an essential aspect of causation to jurors, as we have noted: The word “substantial” is used to denote the fact that the defendant’s conduct has such an effect in producing the harm as to lead reasonable men to regard it as a cause, using that word in the popular sense, in which there always lurks the idea of responsibility, rather than in the so-called “philosophic sense,” which includes every one of the great number of events without which any happening would not have occurred. Each of these events is a cause in the so-called “philosophic sense,” yet the effect of many of them is so insignificant that no ordinary mind would think of them as causes. Lear Siegler, Inc. v. Perez , 819 S.W.2d 470, 472 & n.1 (Tex. 1991) (quoting Restatement (Second) of Torts § 431 cmt . a (1965)); see also Borg-Warner Corp. v. Flores , 232 S.W.3d 765, 770 (Tex. 2007). In other words, for an act or event to rise to the level of cause in the legal sense, the act or event must be such that reasonable jurors would identify it as being actually responsible for the ultimate harm. The cause must be more than one of the countless ubiquitous and insignificant causes that in some remote sense may have contributed to a given effect as, for example, simply getting up in the morning. That the term substantial factor is given to this commonsense aspect of legal causation simply makes plain to jurors that more than causation in this indirect, “philosophic sense” is required. See Staggs , 134 S.W.2d at 1030 (recognizing that but-for language repeated something already included in the usual and ordinary meaning of “cause” and draws juror attention to the importance of an unbroken causal connection). It does not demand, nor even imply, a higher standard of legal causation beyond the ordinary sense of the concept. Transcontinental argues that the omission of but-for language in the charge submitted by the trial court renders the definition legally incorrect. We agree. As we discussed in one workers’ compensation case, “to say of a cause of an injury that it is one ‘but for which the injury would not have happened’ is to repeat something already included in the usual and ordinary meaning of the word ‘cause.’” Id. (quoting Tex. & Pac. Ry. Co. v. Short , 62 S.W.2d 995, 999 (Tex. Civ. App.—Eastland 1933, writ ref’d )). However, the inclusion of but-for language in producing cause definitions has long been considered useful, serving “to direct the jury’s attention to the importance of unbroken causal connection between the injury and the disability or death.” Id. ; see also Wichita County v. Hart , 917 S.W.2d 779, 783–84 (Tex. 1996) (“A trial court must submit explanatory instructions and definitions that will assist the jury in rendering a verdict.”). We recognized this in Ledesma and, desiring to offer “practical help to a jury striving to make the often difficult causation determination,” held that a producing cause definition that did not include the but -for component was “incomplete.” 242 S.W.3d at 46. Indeed, we have often referred to producing cause and cause in fact synonymously with but-for causation. See, e.g. , LMB, Ltd. v. Moreno , 201 S.W.3d 686, 688 (Tex. 2006) (per curiam ); Marathon Corp. v. Pitzner , 106 S.W.3d 724, 727 (Tex. 2003) (per curiam ); Hyundai Motor Co. v. Rodriguez , 995 S.W.2d 661, 667 (Tex. 1999). The producing cause definition submitted in this case lacked the but -for component. It, too, was incomplete, and therefore an erroneous statement of the law of producing cause. See Union Pac. R.R. Co. v. Williams , 85 S.W.3d 162, 166 (Tex. 2002).