Court Opinion

ID: 9763740
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:54:28.045954+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:57:44.491542
License: Public Domain

McGARRY, Justice,
concurring and dissenting.
Although I did not serve on the panel in this ease, I respectfully dissent. Tex. *551R.AppP. 90(e); O’Connor v. First CouH of Appeals, 837 S.W.2d 94, 96 (Tex.1992).
The jury in this case found that Upjohn’s negligence was a proximate cause of the “occurrence in question.” The jury also found that Upjohn’s conduct proximately caused the Freeman family to lose the companionship and emotional support of William R. Freeman. The jury chose not to compensate Mr. Fi’eeman, who is a convicted murderer serving a life sentence in the state penitentiary.
The jury charge in this case does not define the term “occurrence in question.” Presumably, the jury had an idea about what it meant when it answered the question in the affirmative. The tidal judge, who submitted the charge and entered judgment on the verdict, must also be presumed to have had an idea about what the verdict meant. However, this Court has taken it upon itself to impose a definition, after the fact, that effectively frustrates the clear intent of both the jury and the trial court.
The Court defines the “occurrence” as Mr. Freeman’s ingestion of Halcion. Maj. op. at 546, 547. The only support offered for this definition is a legal citation to Morgan v. Compugraphic Corp., 675 S.W.2d 729, 732 (Tex.1984). The Court thus appears to treat the definition as an abstract question of law that must be answered by reference to case authority and legal commentary. Such an analysis, I believe, is misguided from its inception.
Morgan correctly observed that the typical personal-injury ease requires proof of two causal nexuses: between the defendant’s conduct and the event sued upon; and between the event sued upon and the plaintiffs injury. Morgan, 675 S.W.2d at 732. Morgan illustrated this distinction by reference to the old pattern jury charge, which asked two questions: whether the defendant’s conduct proximately caused the occurrence in question; and the amount of money that would compensate for injuries, if any, resulting from the occurrence in question. Morgan, 675 S.W.2d at 732. However, neither of these authorities tells us what the “event sued upon” or the “occurrence in question” refers to in any given case.
The Court also cites the current pattern jury charge as authority for the proposition that both causal nexuses identified in Morgan can be combined into a single broad form question, but suggests in a footnote that this can only be accomplished by using the term injury or the phrase occumnce or injury.1 Maj. op. at 545, n. 3 (citing 3 State BAR of Texas, Texas Pattern Jury Charges PJC 80.03 (1991)). However, even the pattern jury charge does not slavishly insist on a question using the term “injury” in all cases.
To the contrary, the current pattern jury charge makes it quite clear that a choice between “occurrence” and “injury” is important only when there is evidence of the plaintiffs negligence that is “injury-causing” or “injury-enhancing” but not “occurrence-causing.” 2 1 State Bar Of Texas, Pattern Jury Charge PJC § 4.01, pp. 4-6, 4-7 (1987); 3 State Bar of Texas, Pattern Jury Charge PJC § 71.01, p. 71-3 (1990). Absent such evidence, the Pattern Jury Charge Committee acknowledged that there is no real distinction between occurrence-causing and injury-causing liability, and that both are acceptable modes of submission. See Russell H. McMains, Contribution and Indemnity Problems in Texas Multi-Party Litigation, 17 St. Mary’s L.J. 653, 676 (1986). That is why the pattern jury charge offers the alternatives of “[occurrence] [injury] [occurrence or injury]” in its form submission. It is not because “injury” is a magic word under Morgan.
*552Even under the Court’s interpretation of the jury charge and verdict, Mr. Freeman was responsible for causing fifty percent of the “occurrence.” There appears to be no evidence that Mr. Freeman caused an injury without causing an “occurrence.” Thus, according to the commentary in the pattern jury charge, the decision to use either “occurrence” or “injury” in the jury charge is entirely inconsequential under the facts of this case.
More important is the observation that neither the supreme court’s opinion in Morgan nor the pattern jury charge and its accompanying commentary offer any guidance on what constitutes the “occurrence” in any given case. Morgan appears to equate “occurrence in question” with “the event sued upon.” Morgan, 675 S.W.2d at 732. The pattern jury charge seems to treat the “occurrence in question” as meaning an accident, or in an appropriate case, a collision. 1 State BaR of Texas, PatteRN Jury Charge PJC § 4.01, pp. 4-4, 4-5 (1987). However, it is clear that its meaning will depend on the facts of each case.
In this case, the Court has rather arbitrarily decided that “the event sued upon,” ie., the “occurrence,” was the mere ingestion of Halcion by Mr. Freeman. This makes little sense. The mere ingestion of Halcion by Mr. Freeman could not be the event sued upon because no cause of action accrued at the time of that event. This interpretation of the charge also makes the jury’s verdict unintelligible: there is no pleading or evidence that Mr. Freeman was negligent merely by ingesting Halcion. To the contrary, he was merely taking medication that had been prescribed to him by his doctor.
The event sued upon in this case, ie., the “occurrence in question,” could easily refer to Mr. Freeman’s shooting Donnie Hazelwood, or at the very least, to the onset of Mr. Freeman’s psychiatric problems, including memory loss, psychosis, depression, headaches and suicidal tendencies. Certainly, the plaintiffs’ petition clearly focuses on these “psychiatric side effects” as the basis of their suit. The important point is that the meaning of “occurrence in question” as it is used in the jury charge is unclear, and the Court has failed to apply the proper analysis in determining its meaning.
There áre two cardinal rules for determining the meaning of a jury finding.3 First, the reviewing court must interpret the finding so as to reconcile it with the jury’s verdict as a whole, if reasonably possible in light of the pleadings and evidence, and the manner of submission. Luna v. Southern Pac. Transp. Co., 724 S.W.2d 388, 384 (Tex.1987); Bender v. Southern Pac. Transp. Co., 600 S.W.2d 257, 260 (Tex.1980); Martin v. Gulf Ins. Group, 788 S.W.2d 376, 378 (Tex.App. — Dallas 1989, writ ref'd n.r.e.); Archer v. Wood, 771 S.W.2d 631, 631 (Tex.App. — Dallas 1989, no writ). Second, the finding must be interpreted to uphold the judgment. Jackson v. United States Fidelity & Guar. Co., 689 S.W.2d 408, 412 (Tex.1985). The Court’s opinion in this case violates both rules.
For example, the Court’s interpretation of the jury’s verdict to mean that Mr. Freeman suffered no injury is inconsistent with the jury’s finding that Upjohn caused the Freeman family to lose Mr. Freeman’s companionship and emotional support. The Court’s opinion dismisses this conflict by arguing that the jury must find injury to Mr. Freeman before determining loss of consortium, but this argument is circular: it begs the factual question of whether the jury interpreted “occurrence in question” to mean Mr. Freeman’s injury; it also begs the legal question of whether there is any evidence in this case to justify distinguishing between “occurrence” and “injury” in the charge. The Court must interpret “occurrence” to mean “injury” in this case because the evidence permits it and it is necessary to harmonize the jury’s findings.
At the very least, if “occurrence” could mean the onset of psychosis, or the consequent shooting and imprisonment, then the omission of the word “injury” from the *553charge most likely reflects a conclusion by the trial court that the causal nexus between such an occurrence and Mr. Freeman’s injury was undisputed and should not be separately submitted. The omitted “injury” issue would be deemed found by the court in support of the judgment. Tex.R.Civ.P. 279. Alternatively, “occurrence” should be interpreted to mean or include a finding of injury because that is necessary to support the judgment. Jackson, 689 S.W.2d at 412.
I would uphold the jury’s award of damages for loss of consortium because the jury found that the defendants caused Mr. Freeman’s injuries, and because Freeman’s psychosis and resulting life imprisonment are serious, permanent and disabling physical injuries as a matter of law. See Browning-Ferris Indus., Inc. v. Lieck, 881 S.W.2d 288 (Tex.1994); see also Reagan v. Vaughn, 804 S.W.2d 463, 468 (Tex.1990). I would uphold the award of punitive damages because they are properly predicated on this award of actual damages.
I concur in the Court’s conclusion that the trial court properly refused to enter judgment on the jury’s award for loss of support to Martha, Sean and Lance Freeman. The family members’ loss of support claim is subsumed within Mr. Freeman’s claim for loss of future earning capacity.4 See Suber v. Ohio Medical Prods., Inc., 811 S.W.2d 646, 657 (Tex.App. — Houston [14th Dist.] 1991, writ denied) (Ellis, J. dissenting). The plaintiffs’ failure to challenge the trial court’s directed verdict on Mr. Freeman’s claim precludes an award for loss of support.5

. Under the Court’s reasoning, using occwrence or injury in the disjunctive ought to be inadequate as well: the jury may have found causation of an occurrence without causation of injury.

. Examples given include the plaintiff’s preacci-dent negligence, such as carrying gasoline in an unprotected container that explodes in a subsequent crash, and the plaintiffs postaccident negligence, such as not following doctor’s orders during recovery, resulting in an aggravation of injuries sustained in a prior accident. The pattern jury charge also refers to the plaintiff’s misuse of a defective product or the failure to mitigate or avoid damages, citing Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 665 S.W.2d 414, 428 (Tex.1984).

. These rules apply when the meaning of a jury finding is unclear. If a word or phrase in a finding has a clear, ordinary meaning, then that is what the jury will be presumed to have meant. See Northwestern Nat’l. Cas. Co. v. McCoslin, 838 S.W.2d 715, 718 (Tex.App. — Waco 1992, no writ).

. Judge Ellis' dissent did not say that the two claims are "duplicative," however, because they are not. There are many instances in which a spouse’s future earning capacity would not be used solely to provide support for the family.

. I join the Third Court of Appeals in questioning why loss of support claims are limited to wrongful death actions. See Bennight v. Western Auto Supply Co., 670 S.W.2d 373, 379 (Tex.App.— Austin 1984, writ ref'd n.r.e.). If loss of support is "duplicative” of loss of future earning capacity, as the majority suggests, then the trial court should be able to submit it either way. If the two claims are merely overlapping but not dupli-cative, as I contend, the plaintiffs and the trial court should be free to submit the narrower loss of support claim, rather than the broader earning capacity claim, in a personal injury action.