Court Opinion

ID: 9674955
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:37:50.847159+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:30.225006
License: Public Domain

KOEHLER, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion, specifically as to the overruling of Appellant’s Point of Error No. Five which asserted that there was no evidence or insufficient evidence of mental anguish to support the jury verdict. If there was any evidence more than a scintilla, it was clearly insufficient to support the jury’s finding in that respect and I would thus reverse with respect to that finding and either order a re-mittitur or a remand.
The development of the theory of damages for mental anguish could be an act in “A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum.”1 Just as in other areas of the law, some of the changes and developments in the law pertaining to mental anguish make logical sense and others just happened. It was not too many years ago that the Supreme Comí; held that a party could not recover for mental anguish in the absence of some objective injury connected with a crime or tort because both its existence and extent could be established only by the word of the injured party. Harned v. E-Z Finance Co., 151 Tex. 641, 254 S.W.2d 81 (1953).2 Such cases as Cactus Drilling Co. v. McGinty, 580 S.W.2d 609 (Tex.Civ.App. — Amarillo 1979, no writ) and Ryder Truck Rentals v. Latham, 593 S.W.2d 334 (Tex.Civ.App. — El Paso 1979, writ ref'd n.r.e.) held that in order to recover for mental anguish, a plaintiff must show more than mere worry, anxiety, vexation or anger; there must be evidence of “intense pain of body or mind, or a high degree of mental suffering.” 593 S.W.2d at 339. There still had to be some physical manifestation of the mental anguish. Along came Moore v. Lillebo, 722 S.W.2d 683 (Tex.1986), a wrongful death case, where Justice Campbell writing for the majority, with a strong dissent by Justice Spears, held that recovery damages for mental anguish could be had despite the absence of any physical manifestations.
Over the next several years, many cases involving mental anguish, a number of which are cited and referred to in the majority opinion, came down the pike. In most of *903these cases, there was some evidence of outward manifestations of intense pain of body or mind (e.g., chronic headaches, nervous and irritable, and unable to sleep). However, there has been a tendency in some cases to conclude that there is some evidence of mental anguish if the plaintiff just says one or more of the magic words. That is to say, if the complaining party testifies that he was extremely angry or humiliated, for example, that is sufficient evidence of mental anguish (of intense pain to mind or body) to go to the jury.
We now come to the instant case where in response to a question on direct by his attorney inquiring as to what kind of suffering or anguish he had gone through since losing his job, Hinds said: “I really don’t know how to put a word on it. Humiliation I suppose or victimization or something. I don’t know how to word it in a clinical way.” And then to the follow-up question as to what humiliation or victimization he had felt, Hinds replied simply that he was put in the position of explaining “to people who only know the other side” the real reason why he lost his job. He was unable to offer any further description of how he felt. This is no evidence of intense mental or physical pain or of a high degree of mental suffering, but merely an expression of how anyone might feel who had recently lost his job for whatever reason. Even if we are prepared to hold that the mere use of one of the magic words, in this case “humiliation,” amounts to more than a scintilla of evidence of mental anguish, it is still not sufficient evidence to support a finding and an award of damages. I would sustain Point of Error No. Five and order a remittitur of the $18,000 found by the jury for mental anguish or remand for new trial.

. A well-known American Broadway musical, music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, based on a play by the Roman, Titus Plautus.

. "Where mental anguish is not connected with some other wrong, such as breach of contract, or physical injury, the allowance of such cause of action opens a wide and dangerous field in which it is difficult, if not impossible, to consistently apply the rule. It is easy to assert a claim of mental anguish and very hard to disprove it, the claim resting upon a mental condition, not capable of rebuttal by evidence within the reach or power of the defendant.” Gardner v. Cumberland Tel. Co., 207 Ky. 249, 268 S.W. 1108, 1110 (1925), as quoted in Hamed, 254 S.W.2d at 86.