Court Opinion

ID: 9881513
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-03 00:00:39.401678+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:16:01.362046
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-50146         Document: 00516916891             Page: 1      Date Filed: 10/02/2023

              United States Court of Appeals
                   for the Fifth Circuit                                         United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                          Fifth Circuit

                                      ____________                                      FILED
                                                                                  October 2, 2023
                                        No. 23-50146                                  Lyle W. Cayce
                                      ____________                                         Clerk

   Osvaldo Perez,

                                                                     Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                             versus

   U.S. Xpress, Incorporated; James Coan,

                                               Defendants—Appellees.
                      ______________________________

                      Appeal from the United States District Court
                           for the Western District of Texas
                                USDC No. 6:21-CV-432
                      ______________________________

   Before King, Willett, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
   Per Curiam: *
          Osvaldo Perez appeals the district court’s entry of summary judgment
   in favor of U.S. Xpress, Inc., and James Coan on Perez’s negligence claims,
   which arise out of a parking-lot bump in a truck-stop parking lot. Perez was
   asleep in his tractor trailer. The bump woke him up, and he jumped out of his
   bunk—instead of climbing down like he normally does—landing on the floor
   and injuring himself in the process. We agree with the district court that, as

          _____________________
          *
              This opinion is not designated for publication. See 5th Cir. R. 47.5.
Case: 23-50146      Document: 00516916891          Page: 2   Date Filed: 10/02/2023

                                    No. 23-50146

   a matter of law, the defendants did not proximately cause Perez’s injuries.
   We thus AFFIRM.
                                         I
          This lawsuit arises out of a parking-lot accident on January 23, 2020.
   Perez was asleep in the top bunk of the cabin of his tractor-trailer, which was
   parked at a truck rest stop. Coan, who was driving a tractor-trailer for U.S.
   Xpress at the time, attempted to park his vehicle next to Perez’s. But as Coan
   turned into the parking space, one front corner of his vehicle bumped a back
   corner of Perez’s vehicle. Coan was going 3 miles per hour at the time.
          The impact woke Perez up. He “wanted to find out what was
   happening.” Perez testified as to his thought process at the moment:
   “Normally if you’re sleeping inside the truck and somebody hits you, they
   just leave, and then you don’t know what happened. So, then, if you don’t
   get out of the cab and take a look, the other person can just drive away. And
   that—and that’s what happened. I was deep asleep, and I got scared. I didn’t
   know what was going on.”
          So he jumped—out of his bunk and onto the floor. Or, as he put it, he
   “dove off the bed.” This was not, however, his usual procedure for getting
   out of his bunk. Normally, he gets down from the top bunk by putting one
   foot on a cabinet, and then the other foot on the lower bunk, before lowering
   himself to the floor. This time, though, he “skipped those steps and just
   jumped straight to the floor.” As he landed, he felt a “pinch” or “stab” in
   his back.
          After he landed, he went out the driver’s door, down the steps, into
   the parking lot, and there he saw Coan’s tractor-trailer. He spoke with Coan,
   took some pictures, and called the police. The police reported to the scene,
   made a report, and issued no citations. Perez then got back into the truck,
   went back to bed, and later completed the rest of his route.

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Case: 23-50146        Document: 00516916891         Page: 3   Date Filed: 10/02/2023

                                     No. 23-50146

             Perez sued Coan and U.S. Xpress in Texas state court under a variety
   of negligence theories, claiming that they are responsible for his injuries,
   including medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish,
   and loss of earning capacity in the future. The defendants removed the case
   to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, invoking the
   court’s diversity jurisdiction.
             The district court heard argument and orally granted the defendants’
   motion for summary judgment on September 28, 2022. Perez timely filed a
   notice of appeal on February 27, 2023. See Fed. R. App. P. 4(a)(7)(A)(ii).
   The district court entered its written order and opinion, as well as the Rule
   58 judgment, on March 10, 2023. Relevant to this appeal, the court held that
   the defendants’ negligence was not the proximate cause of Perez’s back
   injury.
                                          II
             We review the district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo,
   applying the same standard as the district court. McClendon v. United States,
   892 F.3d 775, 780–81 (5th Cir. 2018). Summary judgment shall be granted if
   the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and
   that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id. (citing Fed.
   R. Civ. P. 56(a)). “Under the federal summary judgment standard, if the
   court determines that a reasonable juror could not find in the plaintiff’s favor
   on any one of the[] elements” of negligence, “a grant of summary judgment
   for the defendant is appropriate.” Funches v. Progressive Tractor & Implement
   Co., 905 F.3d 846, 851 (5th Cir. 2018); see Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S.
   317, 322–23 (1986).
                                          III
             On appeal, Perez argues that a reasonable juror could conclude that
   Coan’s collision was a proximate cause of Perez’s injuries. We disagree.

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Case: 23-50146       Document: 00516916891           Page: 4     Date Filed: 10/02/2023

                                      No. 23-50146

          In Texas, “[t]he elements of a negligence cause of action are the
   existence of a legal duty, a breach of that duty, and damages proximately
   caused by the breach.” IHS Cedars Treatment Ctr. of DeSoto, Texas, Inc. v.
   Mason, 143 S.W.3d 794, 798 (Tex. 2004). “The two elements of proximate
   cause are cause in fact (or substantial factor) and foreseeability.” Id. “These
   elements cannot be satisfied by mere conjecture, guess, or speculation.” Id.
   at 789–99.
          At issue here is cause-in-fact. “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.” Id. at 799. Of particular
   relevance, “cause in fact is not established where the defendant’s negligence
   does no more than furnish a condition which makes the injuries possible.” Id.
   “In other words, the conduct of the defendant may be too attenuated from
   the resulting injuries to the plaintiff to be a substantial factor in bringing about
   the harm.” Id. Thus, under Texas law, “merely creating the condition that
   makes the harm possible falls short as a matter of law of satisfying the
   substantial factor test.” Id. at 800.
          One key case illustrates this principle. In Bell v. Campbell, three Good
   Samaritans were trying to remove a trailer from the highway after a vehicular
   collision, but as they did so a passing vehicle struck the trailer, killing two of
   the Good Samaritans and injuring the third. 434 S.W.2d 117, 118 (Tex. 1968).
   When the Good Samaritans’ beneficiaries sued the drivers involved in both
   collisions, the Supreme Court of Texas held that the negligence of the drivers
   involved in the first accident was not a proximate cause of the second accident,
   even though the second accident would not have happened but for the first.
   Id. at 122. In the court’s view, “[a]ll forces involved in or generated by the
   first collision had come to rest, and no one was in any real or apparent danger
   therefrom. No one would have been injured if there had not been a second
   collision.” Id. at 120.

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Case: 23-50146     Document: 00516916891           Page: 5      Date Filed: 10/02/2023

                                    No. 23-50146

          Here, Perez sustained an injury to his back when he jumped from the
   top bunk and landed on the ground, not when Coan bumped into Perez’s
   vehicle. The impact did not cause Perez to fall out of his bunk. He jumped
   out of bed after the impact. As in Bell, then, the forces from Coan’s
   negligence had come to rest and Perez was in no further danger from Coan’s
   negligent operation of the vehicle. See id. Nor is there any evidence that the
   impact caused him to involuntarily and “instinctively” leap out of bed. To
   the contrary, the record unequivocally shows that his decision to dive out of
   bed was deliberate: he needed to move fast to “take a look” before the other
   driver could drive away. Finally, Perez points to no evidence suggesting that
   he would have sustained the same back injury from Coan’s collision had he
   followed his usual protocol of descending from the top bunk using footholds.
   Coan’s negligence was therefore not a cause-in-fact of Perez’s back injury.
   No reasonable juror could conclude otherwise from this record.
          In sum, we agree with the district court that Perez has not shown any
   genuine dispute of material fact as to proximate causation. Perez was not
   injured by the collision; he was injured afterward, when he dove out of bed to
   catch the person who bumped into his vehicle in the parking lot. Because we
   affirm on this ground, like the district court we do not need to consider the
   defendants’ alternative argument that Perez’s injury was not a foreseeable
   cause of Coan’s negligence in parking the tractor-trailer.
          AFFIRMED.

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