Opinion ID: 1987708
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Consciousness Evidence

Text: Further, we have had to particularize legal-sufficiency review in cases involving what a party knew or why it took a certain course, as they are not amenable to review under the exclusive standard. Long before gross negligence had to meet a clear-and-convincing burden, we recognized in Burk Royalty Co. v. Walls that no-evidence review of such findings had to include all of the surrounding facts, circumstances, and conditions, not just individual elements or facts. [78] As then Chief Justice Greenhill noted in concurring, speeding and running a red light may not be legally sufficient evidence of gross negligence if one's wife and daughter are bleeding to death in the back seat. [79] Reviewing courts assessing evidence of conscious indifference cannot disregard part of what a party was conscious of. [80] For the same reasons, the exclusive standard of review has proven problematic in insurance bad-faith cases. Liability in such cases requires proof that the insurer denied coverage after it became reasonably clear. [81] But that standard will always be met if reviewing courts must disregard any evidence that coverage was unclear. [82] Subsequent cases show that reviewing courts are in fact looking at all the evidence to determine whether coverage was reasonably clear. [83] This problem arises in other contexts as well. In discrimination cases, discharged employees will never have to prove that the reason given for termination was a pretext if no-evidence review must disregard that reason. [84] Government officials will never be entitled to immunity if we consider only evidence suggesting they should have acted differently. [85] And limitations will never run under the discovery rule if reviewing courts must disregard all evidence that claimants knew of their claims. [86] This is not to say a reviewing court may credit a losing party's explanations or excuses if jurors could disregard them. For example, while an insurer's reliance on an expert report may foreclose bad faith recovery, [87] it will not do so if the insurer had some reason to doubt the report. [88] But a reviewing court cannot review whether jurors could reasonably disregard a losing party's explanations or excuses without considering what they were.