Court Opinion

ID: 9768138
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:43:57.97463+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:36.851612
License: Public Domain

SPECTOR, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
I join in Parts I through IV of the Court’s opinion. I cannot, however, join in Part V of the opinion, in which the Court renders judgment for Clayton Williams, Inc., and Odis Graham.
Today the Court clarifies that a general contractor’s right to control or actual control over an independent contractor creates a duty that can be breached through either a negligent activity or a premises defect. Neither the parties nor the lower courts that have examined this case have successfully grasped these two distinct ways that a general contractor may be liable for injuries. All previous cases, including those from this Court, have involved a general contractor’s control over the independent contractor’s activity that itself causes an injury. Never before has a reported case properly explained that a general contractor can be liable for negligence in exercising control over the independent contractor’s activity that creates a premises defect. Because the Court explains today for the first time that the premises elements must be submitted to the jury along with a negligent-control question in this type of case, I would vacate the judgments of the trial court and the court of appeals and, in the interest of justice, remand this case for a new trial. Tex.R.App. P. 180; see American Title Ins. Co. v. Byrd, 384 S.W.2d 683 (Tex.1964). Accordingly, I dissent to the Court’s judgment.