Court Opinion

ID: 9773561
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 17:49:37.820419+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:55.072086
License: Public Domain

*709ON MOTION FOR REHEARING
Appellant attacks our holding that the evidence supports the jury’s findings of a conspiracy between him and Surety Industries, Inc., on the ground that we have “undertaken to establish the rule in Texas that a corporation can conspire with its chief executive officer when the one and only actor in the whole transaction was the chief executive officer himself.”
This argument indicates a misunderstanding of our ruling. We have not undertaken to establish any such rule. Our decision is limited to the peculiar circumstances of this case and the language of the issues and accompanying definitions, as submitted to the jury without objection. We agree with the decisions cited by appellant to the effect that a corporation cannot conspire with itself, no matter how many of its agents may participate in the corporate action. Worley v. Columbia Gas of Kentucky, 491 F.2d 256, 261 (6th Cir. 1974); Dorsey v. Chesapeake & Ohio Ry., 476 F.2d 243, 245 (4th Cir. 1973); Pearson v. Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co., 332 F.2d 439, 442 (7th Cir. 1964); Nelson Radio & Supply Co. v. Motorola, 200 F.2d 911, 914 (5th Cir. 1952), cert. denied, 345 U.S. 925, 73 S.Ct. 783, 97 L.Ed. 1356 (1953); Webb v. Culberson, Heller & Norton, Inc., 357 F.Supp. 923, 924 (N.D.Miss.1973); Johnny Maddox Motor Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 202 F.2d 103, 105 (W.D.Tex.1960). We accept also the rulings of certain federal trial courts construing the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as requiring that a conspiracy in restraint of trade be shown by a concert of action between more than one individual person. Knutson v. Daily Review, Inc., 383 F.Supp. 1346, 1359 (N.D.Cal.1974), modified, 548 F.2d 795 (9th Cir. 1977); Windsor Theatre Co. v. Walbrook Amusement Co., 94 F.Supp. 388, 396 (D.Md.1950), affm’d, 189 F.2d 797 (4th Cir. 1951).
Likewise, he have no quarrel with those decisions holding on their particular facts that the claim of common-law conspiracy did not provide an independent ground of primary liability against a corporation and its chief officer in the absence of any participation in the wrongdoing by another corporate agent. Ariate Compania Naviera v. Commonwealth Tankship Owners, Ltd., 310 F.Supp. 416, 421 (S.D.N.Y.1970); Bereswill v. Yablon, 6 N.Y.2d 301, 305, 189 N.Y.S.2d 661, 664, 160 N.E.2d 531, 533 (1959); Lockwood Grader Corp. v. Bockhaus, 129 Colo. 339, 270 P.2d 193, 196-97 (1954). Even if these cases are taken to stand for the rule that conspiracy is not a ground of recovery against an individual acting in more than one capacity, that rule, as applied here, would mean only that the definition of conspiracy in the charge was too broad in that it permitted the jury to consider Christopher’s acts as an individual in combination with his acts as a corporate officer in determining the existence of a conspiracy. If such an objection had been made, the court might have given an appropriate limiting instruction or it might have submitted the exemplary damages issues on some other theory raised by the evidence. Since no such objection was made, our question is whether the evidence supports the findings on the seventh issue under the broad definitions as submitted. For the reasons given, we hold that it does.
Moreover, since Christopher’s wrongful conduct and his liability for actual damages were established by other findings, and since the only significance of the conspiracy findings in the context of this appeal is to characterize his wrongful conduct as “willful and deliberate” for the purpose of recovering exemplary damages, we hold that the jury’s findings, based on the evidence of such a combination, supports the recovery of exemplary damages, however inadequate the evidence may have been to establish a common-law conspiracy for any other purpose.
Motion for rehearing overruled.
AKIN, J., dissents.