Court Opinion

ID: 9627173
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:37:28.806861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:41.650340
License: Public Domain

SEYMORE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. Our courts have consistently allowed recovery of mental anguish damages for the negligent handling of a dead body. Terrill v. Harbin, 376 S.W.2d 945, 945-46 (Tex.Civ.App.—Eastland 1964, writ dism’d); Love v. Aetna Cas. & Sur. Co., 99 S.W.2d 646, 650 (Tex.Civ.App.—Beaumont 1936) (any interfer*879ence with next-of-kin’s right to preserve and bury the body by mutilating it is a wrong for which the family can maintain a cause of action for damages, aff'd, 182 Tex. 280, 121 S.W.2d 986 (1938); Burnett v. Surratt, 67 S.W.2d 1041, 1042 (Tex.Civ.App.—Dallas 1934) writ ref'd) (the right to bury a corpse and preserve its remains is a legal right recognized by the courts); see also St. Elizabeth Hosp. v. Garrard, 730 S.W.2d 649, 654 (Tex.1987) (Spears, J., concurring) (“This state has long recognized that establishing the mishandling of a corpse and establishing a feeling of closeness or love between the deceased and the one asking for damages is sufficient for a jury to consider mental anguish.”).1 Moreover, the Texas legislature prescribed criminal penalties for mutilation of a corpse. Tex. Penal Code Ann. § 42.08 (Vernon 1994).
The majority correctly states that there is no general duty in Texas to avoid negligently inflicting mental anguish. Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593, 594 (Tex.1993). However, the supreme court in Boyles recognized that its holding “does not affect a claimant’s right to recover mental anguish damages caused by [a] defendant’s breach of some other legal duty.” Id. at 597. As a specific example of breach of “some other duty” for which mental anguish damages are still available, the supreme court listed “negligent handling of a corpse.” Id.
In City of Tyler v. Likes, the supreme court revisited the issue of recovery of mental anguish damages and stated that “most relationships, whether legal or personal, create no duty to avoid causing mental anguish.” 962 S.W.2d 489, 496 (Tex.1997). It identified three areas in which mental anguish damages are generally recoverable: 1) common law torts involving intentional or malicious conduct; 2) personal injury cases based upon negligence where there is bodily injury; and 3) foreseeable results of breach of duties arising from certain special relationships. Id. at 495-96. The supreme court gave as an example of such a special relationship “a very limited number of contracts dealing with intensely emotional noncommercial subjects such as preparing a corpse for burial.” Id. at 496 (citing Pat H. Foley & Co. v. Wyatt, 442 S.W.2d 904 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1969, writ ref'd n.r.e.)).
However, I do not believe that the supreme court intended to abrogate, by its citation to Pat H. Foley & Co., the cause of action for negligent handling of a corpse. Nor do I believe the supreme court intended to limit mental anguish damages to those situations in which the deceased’s family are in privity with the party who negligently mishandles or mutilates their loved one. There are numerous scenarios in which a party not in privity with a deceased’s family could negligently mishandle or mutilate a dead member of the family. For instance, an ambulance or common carrier could neglect to secure a body in transport, resulting in the body being damaged. A vehicle transporting a dead body could collide with a negligent third party. The majority failed to acknowledge case precedent in which the defendant and the deceased’s family were not in privity. See, e.g., Terrill, 376 S.W.2d at 945 (doctor’s autopsy of de*880ceased exceeded consent of widow, who permitted incision only through existing surgical scar, not incision from shoulder to pelvis); Classen v. Benfer, 144 S.W.2d 633, 635 (Tex.Civ.App.—San Antonio 1940, writ dism’d judgm’t cor.) (family sued purchaser of land on which their loved one was buried when purchaser moved the body to another tract of land); Love, 99 S.W.2d at 646 (insurance company defendant wrongly persuaded a county justice of the peace to order an autopsy on its insured).
In Likes, the supreme court makes no pretension of a bright-line rule: “[our] analysis is far from exhaustive, for the law of mental anguish damages is rooted in societal judgments ... about the gravity of certain wrongs and their likely effects.” Id. at 496. Further, the supreme court in Likes states that it “does not attempt the perhaps impossible task of distilling a unified theory of mental anguish from the existing precedents.” Id.
Accordingly, I do not agree that the supreme court’s analysis in either Boyles or Likes precludes a cause of action for mental anguish resulting from enucleation of a deceased family member’s eyes. I limit my dissent to the issue of whether a cause of action exists; therefore, I have not addressed the other issues presented, including sufficiency of the evidence to support a finding of gross negligence.

. The majority opinion in Garrard was overruled by the supreme court in Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593, 597 (Tex.1993), to the extent the opinion could be construed as establishing a general duty to avoid negligent infliction of emotional distress. The Boyles supreme court overruled Garrard rather than "limiting the case to its facts ... or pretending that the concurring opinion was in fact the rationale of the majority.” Id. I cite the concurrence in Garrard, which the supreme court mentions favorably in Boyles, for the proposition that Texas has long recognized a cause of action for negligent mutilation of a corpse.