Court Opinion

ID: 9677792
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:59:53.173694+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:58.448087
License: Public Domain

DOGGETT, Justice,
joined by GAMMAGE, Justice,
concurring.
In response to revisions to the majority opinion made during the pendency of the motion for rehearing, my opinion of February 2,1994 is withdrawn and the following is substituted.
Undoubtedly the insurance industry provides an important service to our society, but I see no reason why it should not have to comply with the law like the rest of us. Because of the tremendous economic power large insurers can exert relative to individual Texas families and businesses, this Court has sought to offer policyholders some protection. Without a meaningful remedy against insurance companies that dishonor their policies, “unscrupulous insurers [can] take advantage of their insureds’ misfortunes.” Arnold v. National County Mut. Life Ins. Co., 725 S.W.2d 165, 167 (Tex.1987).
But the majority’s mission in recent months has been to dismantle, as much as possible, the different safeguards that insurance policyholders and beneficiaries have been previously assured by the laws of Texas. Instead of fairness to all, the majority has replaced protection of insureds with protection of insurers, leaving the insurance industry largely free to do as it pleases. See, e.g., Forbau v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 876 S.W.2d 132 (1994); Allstate Ins. Co. v. Watson, 876 S.W.2d 145 (1993); Lyons v. Millers Casualty Ins. Co., 866 S.W.2d 597 (Tex.1993); National Union Fire Ins. Co. v. Dominguez, 873 S.W.2d 373 (Tex.1994); Spencer v. Eagle Star Ins. Co. of America, 860 S.W.2d 868 (1993). It is as if, to borrow a phrase from Will Rogers, this majority never met an insurance company it didn’t like.
When dealing with a large insurance company, one danger against which insureds need protection is profitable indifference. See, e.g., Weisman v. Blue Shield of California, 163 Cal.App.3d 61, 209 Cal.Rptr. 169, 173 (1984) (upholding punitive damages on showing insurer had “overriding concern for a minimum-expense operation, regardless of the peril involved”). As long as the actual damages suffered by an insured is relatively small in comparison to an insurer’s very substantial assets, liability for actual damages may offer little incentive to provide care and promptness in processing claims. Referenced by the majority as illustrating its new standard, Silberg v. California Life Ins. Co., 11 Cal.3d 452, 113 Cal.Rptr. 711, 521 P.2d 1103 (1974) (en banc), indicates the magnitude of suffering a Texas policyholder must henceforth endure before invoking the punitive damages remedy that today’s opinion *34seeks to eliminate. 879 S.W.2d at 24. Punitive damages mil be deemed appropriate only in circumstances such as those where the insurer’s bad faith effectively denies an insured surgical treatment and pain medication, destroys his business, produces two nervous breakdowns and causes loss of his wheelchair to the repo man. Id. And even then the insured must also show that the company actually knew such consequences would result.
I.
I believe in reasonable constraints on the úse of punitive damages against insurance companies as well as any other defendant. Had there been the slightest interest in achieving that objective on a principled basis, consistent with our prior jurisprudence, we could long ago have resolved this cause with unanimity. But the majority is committed to fulfilling its social agenda at any cost — mere precedent, a procedural rule, a statute or the Texas Constitution present no obstacles on the way to achieving whatever it perceives to be of ultimate benefit.
With judgments for punitive damages at times involving substantial amounts, this court should thoroughly review individual cases and the broader legal standards upon which they are decided to guarantee that justice is truly being rendered. Certainly not all misconduct should give rise to damages in an amount greater than that necessary to compensate the victim. Adjudging more than compensatory damages in the absence of conscious indifference only adds one wrong to another by wronging the wrongdoer. Most assuredly, some concerns of commercial interests regarding aberrational verdicts are legitimate, but such decisions do not reflect a systemic “crisis”; rather they reinforce the need for careful case-by-case review of punitive determinations.
Accordingly, we must ensure that courts of appeals conduct a most careful review of the factual sufficiency of evidence. I am also sympathetic to the concept of requiring bifurcation of the determination of the amount of punitive damages, but insurance companies should be held to ordinary requirements of preservation of error like other litigants. Despite Transportation’s unquestionable waiver of any complaint about bifurcation,1 today’s opinion decides this issue.
Though with this majority it may seem a rather antiquated notion, I still believe that judges should resolve the issues the parties properly present rather than those that the judges wish that had presented.2 Ironically, one major complaint that Transportation did specifically urge is one that the majority chooses to sidestep. I would agree with the insurer on this point by requiring that a trial court articulate reasons for overruling a motion for new trial challenging an award of punitive damages. Articulation ensures “meaningful and adequate review by the trial court whenever a jury has fixed the punitive damages.” See Pacific Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 19-20, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 1044, 113 L.Ed.2d 1 (1991). Who better to determine
whether the jury exceeded its proper bounds [than] the trial judge [who] is present during all aspects of the trial and listens to and views all witnesses. Therefore, he or she can best determine if the jury has acted with “passion or prejudice” and whether the award is too small or too large in light of the evidence.
*35Crookston v. Ins. Exchange, 817 P.2d 789, 804 (Utah 1991) (requiring trial court articulation where ratio of punitive damages to actual damages exceeds 3:1).
In addition to Utah, seven other states now require such articulation3 as have some federal courts.4 Though conceding that such articulation “would facilitate meaningful post-verdict review of punitive damage awards,” would be “helpful,” 879 S.W.2d 33, the majority rejects Transportation’s request. I would grant it and remand to the trial court for such articulation. Compare Chrysler Corp. v. Blackmon, 841 S.W.2d 844, 850-53 (Tex.1992) (requiring trial court to make findings of fact and conclusions of law or to explain reasons for imposing severe discovery sanctions).
Such a remand is, however, quite different from that provided by today’s opinion, which has its origins in the great misadventure in Boyles v. Kerr, 855 S.W.2d 593, 603 (Tex.1993), a decision upon which the majority now relies. There remand was employed simply as an artificial face-saving device for the majority. There was no harm in a remand, so long as the claimant was likely, under the newly announced law, to lose on retrial anyway.5 And this added the glow of justice to a great injustice. Today’s remand is more of the same. If the majority is correct that there is really no evidence of gross negligence, Transportation is entitled to rendition rather than wasting the resources of all parties on a meaningless exercise.
A further safeguard for all parties is the avoidance of a standardless charge that leaves the jury without meaningful guidance in performing its vital task. A proper instruction of the type now incorporated into the Texas Pattern Jury Charge6 was employed here. As I note in Alexander, 868 S.W.2d at 334 (Doggett, J., dissenting), that can be followed by appellate review that considers, in light of the trial court’s articulation, these same factors, outlined in Alamo Nat’l Bank v. Kraus, 616 S.W.2d 908, 910 (Tex.1981):
[I]n determining the reasonableness of the amount of an exemplary damages verdict, an appellate court must consider 1) the nature of the wrong, 2) the character of the conduct involved, 3) the degree of the culpability of the wrongdoer, 4) the situation and the sensibilities of the parties concerned, 5) the extent to which such conduct offends a public sense of justice and propriety.
And there may well be other moderate reforms, which when properly presented, can ensure greater fairness.
But the majority rejects this rational approach and, instead, attempts to rewrite the history of the law and ignores our Constitution by treating punitive damages themselves as an aberration — establishing new barriers that threaten to eliminate entirely the effectiveness of this long-established method by which a community can impose penalties to deter egregious wrongdoing. Today’s endeavor represents another phase in the majority’s construction of a legal bulwark to shield large insurance companies from any *36attempt by juries to discourage particularly outrageous and offensive behavior.
II.
Though now misdescribed by the majority as a recent deviance of an “exceptional nature,” in contradistinction to “typical” tort law, 879 S.W.2d at 16-17, punitive damages “have been in existence since the Code of Hammarabi in 2000 B.C.” 1 Linda L. SCHLUETER & KENNETH R. REDDEN, PUNITIVE Damages § 1.0 at 3 (2d ed., 1989).7 The original suit under the English common law, predating the distinction between civil and criminal, was an “appeal” brought by a private party having “the double object of satisfying the private party for his loss, and the king for the breach of his peace.”8 OliveR Wendell Holmes, The Common Law 34 (Little Brown 1963); see Cushman K. Davis, The Law In Shakespeahe 163 (1883). The purpose of such an action was not limited to compensation; rather “[t]he King or other lord exacted further payments from the wrongdoer ... on the ground that every evil deed inflicts a wrong on society in general, as well upon its victim.” William S. McKechnie, Magna Carta 285 (1914). Even as the law came to distinguish between criminal and civil actions, jurors had near complete discretion over the amount of damages awarded in civil suits “[ujntil comparatively recent times.” 1 Sedgwick On Damages § 349, at 688 (9th ed., 1912). See, e.g., Townsend v. Hughes, 86 Eng.Rep. 994, 994-95 (C.P.1649) (courts should not interfere with jury’s power to award damages). By the end of the 18th century, as recovery for damages became limited to specific standardized categories dependent on the nature of the claim, jurors nevertheless retained near absolute discretion to set damages that would punish outrageous behavior and discourage oppression. Sedgwick On Damages § 349, at 689; Continuity of Punitive Damages, 42 Am.U.L.Rev. at 1287-89, 1292-96. See also Wilkes v. Wood, Lofft. 1, 18-19, 98 Eng.Rep. 489, 498-99 (K.B.1763) (upholding £ 1000 punitive damage verdict against King’s agent on grounds that “[djamages are designed not only as satisfaction to the injured person, but likewise as punishment to the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding for the future and as proof of the detestation of the jury to the action itself’). These damages were known as “punitive,” “exemplary” or “vindictive” damages. Sedgwick On Damages § 347, at 687.
In the leading authority identifying them as a separate species of damages, “exemplary damages” were assessed against a government official for a printer who suffered arrest and seizure of his equipment, as a result of criticizing the King. Huckle v. Money, 2 Wils.K.B. 205, 95 Eng.Rep. 768 (C.P.1763). Although actual damages were estimated by the court to be less than £20, the jury awarded £ 300. Id. In refusing an effort to overturn the verdict as excessive, the court declared:
[I]t is very dangerous for Judges to in-termeddle in damages for torts....
[The jury] saw a magistrate over all the King’s subjects, exercising arbitrary power, violating Magna Charta, and attempting to destroy the liberty of the Kingdom by insisting upon the legality of the warrant before them; they heard the King’s Counsel, and saw the solicitor of the Treasury endeavoring to support and maintain the legality of the warrant in a tyrannical and severe manner. These are the ideas which struck the jury on the trial; and I *37think they have done right in giving exemplary damages.
Id. at 769 (Camden, C.J.).
Whenever an injury is done under the color of authority, as if an officer empowered to press exceed the authority given him by the press warrant; or if the master of the ship abuse the power by law vested in him over the sailors under this command ... the jury in assessing damages is not confined to the damages which have actually been sustained, but ought to assess exemplary damages.
Huckle v. Money (Camden, C.J.), quoted in 1 Sedgwick On Damages § 350, at 690 (citing Saver On Damages 220). Punitive damages were thus established as a fundamental method by which the misuse of power could be deterred. See generally Continuity of Punitivos, 42 Am.U.L.Rev. at 1287-89, 1292-96.
American courts early accepted this same function for punitive damages. See, e.g., Genay v. Norris, 1 S.C. 6 (1784) (awarding vindictive damages against physician who spiked enemy’s drink with toxin causing “extreme and excruciating pain”); Coryell v. Colbaugh, 1 N.J. (Coxe) 77 (1791) (holding that injuries of an “atrocious and dishonorable nature” call for exemplary damages “for example’s sake, to prevent such offenses in the future”); Tillotson v. Cheetham, 3 Johns. 351 (N.Y.Sup.Ct.1808) (citing Huckle for rule that exemplary damages are appropriate when personal injury is small but liberty interests are at stake); Hazard v. Israel, 1 Binn. 239 (Pa.1808) (permitting punitive damages against Sheriff for misconduct of his deputy in executing writ, in absence of actual damages).
Early in. the course of Texas jurisprudence, this Court recognized that by awarding punitive as well as compensatory damages in certain cases the law “blends together the interests of society and the aggrieved individual, and gives damages not only to recompense the sufferer, but to punish the offender.” Graham v. Roder, 5 Tex. 141, 149 (1849). Soon thereafter we noted that punitive damages also serve to deter future misconduct by setting “a public example to prevent the repetition of the act.” Cole v. Tucker, 6 Tex. 266, 268 (1851). Our reliance on this remedy predated even the first relevant writing by the United States Supreme Court that
[i]t is a well-established principle of the common law, that in actions of trespass and all actions on the case for torts, a jury may inflict what are called exemplary, punitive or vindictive damages upon a defendant, having in view the enormity of his offense rather than the measure of compensation to the plaintiff.
Day v. Woodworth, 54 U.S. (13 How.) 363, 14 L.Ed. 181 (1851).
Sufficient importance was attached to punitive damages that they were accorded constitutional stature. See Tex. Const. art. XII, § 30 (1869) (providing that one “commit[ting] a homicide through wilful act or omission, shall be responsible in exemplary damages”).9 While many new provisions added by this Convention10 were later rejected as the misdeeds of Radical Republicans, this particular reform was embraced by the elected delegates of 1875. After debate and rewording,11 the delegates adopted and the *38people of Texas ratified as part of our fundamental governing law the requirement that anyone “eommit[ting] a homicide, through wilful act, or omission, or gross neglect, shall be responsible, in exemplary damages.” Tex. Const. art. XVI, § 25. Texas is the only state in the nation with such a provision.
Later Texas jurisprudence continued to emphasize that punitive damages serve essential deterrent and retributive functions:
As a punishment, exemplary damages are designated not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but likewise as a punishment for the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding in the future, and as a proof of the detestation of the jury to the act itself. The theory of exemplary, punitive, or vindictive damages ... involves a blending of the interests of society in general with those of the aggrieved individual in particular.
Foster v. Bourgeois, 253 S.W. 880, 885 (Tex.Civ.App.1923), aff'd, 113 Tex. 489, 259 S.W. 917 (1924).12
III.
Rewriting history to characterize our civil courts solely as forums for compensation, the majority objects to punitive damages as “ov-ereompensation” — a true “windfall.” 879 S.W.2d at 18. But punitive damages have always served a broader function than that of compensation. See, e.g., Linthicum v. Nationwide Ins. Co., 150 Ariz. 326, 723 P.2d 675, 679 (1986) (en banc) (besides punishing the wrongdoer and deterring similar conduct, punitive damages serve the purpose of “preserving the peace, inducing private law enforcement, compensating victims for otherwise unrecoverable losses, and financing the costs of litigation”); Dan B. Dobbs, Remedies § 3.9 at 205 (1st ed. 1973) (availability of punitive damages encourages civil plaintiffs to act as private attorneys general).
Similarly, in complaining of “overdeter-renee,” 879 S.W.2d at 18, the majority can only mean that abuse of policyholders by insurers, as well as other abuse of ordinary citizens by the powerful, has been so curtailed that our existing level of deterrence can be reduced by eliminating this one important element. But see Leigh v. Engle, 858 F.2d 361, 368 (7th Cir.1988) (recognizing that “there is no way to overdeter” failure by fiduciary to attempt to perform fiduciary duties). Indeed, “overdeterrence” is an unusual new term that has appeared previously neither in Texas jurisprudence nor in ordinary dictionaries; rather it seems to be a recent invention of the law and economics school. Perhaps the majority subscribes to that perspective, which maintains that compensatory tort law should not prevent wrongly caused injuries, but rather encourage misconduct to the extent that its economic benefit outweighs its cost. RichaRD A. PosneR, Economic Analysis Of The Law 147-52,176-77 191-95 (3rd ed. 1986). The function of the tort system based on a negligence standard is said to be merely the “deterrence of inefficient accidents.” Id. at 187 (emphasis added).
To the extent that punitive damages are obtainable, courts “implicitly reject the economic view that the optimal level of violations is greater than zero.” Douglas Laycock, Remedies 607, 612 (1985) (citing Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 119 Cal.App.3d 757, 174 Cal.Rptr. 348 (1981) (upholding $125 million punitive damage award on grounds that defendant exposed individuals to extreme risk after calculating that it would be more profitable to let the accidents happen and pay compensatory damages, than to spend the money necessary to prevent the accidents); and Brown v. Missouri, Pac. R.R., 703 F.2d 1050 (8th Cir.1983) (same)). See also Wangen v. Ford Motor Co., 97 Wis.2d 260, 294 N.W.2d 437, 451 (1980) (“[Were it not for punitive damages,] some may think it cheaper to pay damages or a forfeiture than to change a business practice.”); Sturm, Ruger & Co. v. Day, 594 P.2d 38, 47 (Alaska 1979) (“threat of punitive damages serves a deterrence function in eases ... in which it would *39be cheaper for the manufacturer to pay compensatory damages to those who did present claims than it would be to remedy the product’s defect”); Haslip, 499 U.S. at 20-22, 111 S.Ct. at 1045 (listing “the degree of reprehensibility” and “profitability” of misconduct as factors for “determining whether a punitive award is reasonably related to the goals of deterrence and retribution”).
IV.
That Transportation did not timely challenge its liability for bad faith insurance practices13 does not slow the majority in the least from pontificating on this subject. This is part of a pattern now prevalent here of adjusting the law to fit the majority’s social preferences without regard to whether a litigant has properly sought relief. See General Motors v. Saenz, 873 S.W.2d 353, 364 (1993) (Doggett, J., dissenting).
Broadly characterizing Lyons v. Millers Casualty Ins. Co., 866 S.W.2d 597 (Tex.1993), the majority now insists that there can be “no evidence” of bad faith when “the jury ... decides the insurer was simply incorrect about the factual basis for its denial of the claim” or a “simple disagreement among experts” occurs over coverage. 879 S.W.2d at 18. At best these rules beg the important questions appellate courts are charged with answering. The evidence is often contradictory as to whether the insurer was “simply wrong.” When finding a breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing in response to a properly submitted charge, a jury seldom indicates that it “decid[ed] the insurer was simply wrong.” Nor are disagreements among experts usually “simple.” These new rules have only served to promote unconstitutional factfinding by giving credence to expert opinion that the majority preferred, but which the jury could easily have found entirely incredible, Lyons, 866 S.W.2d at 604-05 (Doggett, J., dissenting), and by categorically limiting solely to coverage, evidence that the jury could have interpreted as implicating both coverage and bad faith. Id. at 603-04; Dominguez, 873 S.W.2d at 378 (Doggett, J., dissenting). As further authority for its new approach, the majority glibly asserts that “a brick is not a wall.” 879 S.W.2d 25. Conducting a whole new mode of review based on this short aphorism, however, the majority is likely to use it as a sledgehammer, reducing to piles of rubble the fact-finding edifices which the Constitution and a complex set of procedures carefully entrust juries to assemble.
Even more remarkably, considering that bad faith liability is not at issue here, the majority additionally appears to make its first embrace of the so-called bona fide dispute rule. 879 S.W.2d at 25 (citing National Union Fire Ins. v. Hudson Energy Co., 780 S.W.2d 417 (Tex.App.—Texarkana 1989), ajfd on other grounds,14 811 S.W.2d 552 (Tex.1991)). As applied in Hudson, this rule appears rather narrow: an insurer’s failure to pay can evidence malice and, if arbitrary and capricious, gross negligence, absent a bona fide controversy over coverage; hut such a dispute cannot be created by “a strained and unconscionable interpretation of policy coverage.” 780 S.W.2d at 427. Such a rule is not, however, well-suited for the narrow type of review permitted this Court by the Texas Constitution.15 By having this *40Court determine whether the coverage dispute is truly bona fide, the majority promotes yet another mechanism for our unconstitutionally engaging in factfinding.16
This rule was appropriately subjected to severe criticism in Nationwide Mutual Ins. Co. v. Crowe, 857 S.W.2d 644, 649 n. 1 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1993, writ denied), since some categories of insurance claims almost always will give rise to coverage controversies. Such a dispute may well develop without bad faith, but it is also conceivable that delay, even by an insurer with an otherwise legitimate dispute, may constitute bad faith. A central tenet of our deci-sional law is that claims for insurance contract coverage are distinct from those in tort for bad faith; resolution of one does not determine the other. Aranda v. Insurance Co. of North America, 748 S.W.2d 210, 214 (Tex.1988). The nature of a policyholder’s breach of contract claim against the insurance company “is not controlling as to the question of breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing.” Viles v. Security Nat'l Ins. Co., 788 S.W.2d 566, 567 (Tex.1990). Certainly an insurer who willfully fails to investigate a claim, and delays and denies coverage with no reasonable basis, should not be freed from responsibility for its misconduct simply because it belatedly uncovers a contractual defense.
By adopting the ambiguous bona fide dispute rule, the majority may be enabling insurers to defeat bad faith claims merely by bringing a challenge to coverage. Today’s opinion offers a perverse incentive for insurers to manufacture or accentuate coverage disputes and further delay payment of claims.
V.
A.
For the very few types of bad faith claims which can henceforth be established, the majority now seeks to bar recovery for punitive damages. Citing only foreign authorities, today’s opinion imposes an unusual rule with absolutely no basis in Texas law that punitive damages are recoverable only when the injury risked by the insurer’s misconduct is “independent and qualitatively different from the sort of injuries that typically result from bad faith or breach of contract.”17 879 S.W.2d at 24. This declaration that the injury for punitive damages purposes must be different from that recoverable for bad faith breach of contract apparently represents a notorious first in our national jurisprudence.18 Of course, no Texas authority exists for the bold new claim that
an insurance carrier’s refusal to pay a claim cannot justify punishment unless the insurer was actually aware that its action would probably result in extraordinary harm not ordinarily associated with breach of contract or bad faith denial of a claim.
879 S.W.2d at 25. Rather this simply constitutes a new edict that punitive damages liability is hereby eliminated for virtually all insurance company conduct — no matter how *41morally reprehensible and intentionally harmful.19
A one-dimensional definition of “extraordinary harm” or “extreme degree of risk” can be easily employed to insulate those responsible for outrageous conduct:
[T]his majority can simply squelch by branding as “non extreme” any legitimate evidence that stands in the way of a preferred outcome. Such use of the word “extreme” merely provides another elastic device for an appellate court to sweep away any evidence inconsistent with the result it wants.
To the extent that what makes a risk “extreme” is a function of any thing other than a judicially desired result, the sole determinant appears to be the probability that harm will occur. [T]his is only one determinant of the “extremity” of a risk; equally important is the character of the wrongful conduct involved. Punitive damages should be tied to the outrageousness of that conduct.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Alexander, 868 S.W.2d at 384 (Tex.1993) (Doggett, J., dissenting). This focus solely on the degree of harm to a particular individual conflicts with the principle underlying punitive damages, which views the harm as directed to the individual as a part of society at large. Angela P. Harris, Rereading Punitive Damages: Beyond the Public/Private Distinction, 40 Ala.L.Rev. 1079, 1107 (1989). The more outrageous misconduct seems to a group of twelve ordinary citizens representing the collective voice of the community, the greater are society’s interests in deterrence and punishment. See also Michael Rustad, In Defense of Punitive Damages in Products Liability: Testing Tort Anecdotes with Empirical Data, 78 Iowa L.Rev. 1, 88 (1992) [hereinafter Punitive Damages ].
This case illustrates the arbitrary use to which the majority can put this new emphasis on separate individualized injury, distinct from that associated with bad faith and breach of contract injuries. Juan Moriel’s distress was neither ordinary nor insignificant. He, in the words of the court of appeals,
reeeiv[ed] an injury that affected an intimate and personal part of his life. He was sued. He resorted to heavy drinking and his marriage was jeopardized.
814 S.W.2d at 150. Substituting a ratified view perceived from the top of the Supreme Court building in Austin for the moral outrage of the jury in El Paso County, the majority patronizingly labels “genuine”, but not worth deterring, Moriel’s fear and trauma of struggling with the resistant Transportation Insurance Company to obtain the means to recover his full masculinity.
B.
Still not satisfied that it has sufficiently insulated insurers from responsibility to their policyholders, the majority deliberately misconstrues Williams v. Steves Industries, 699 S.W.2d 570, 573 (Tex.1985), in a way that effectively reverses the definition and proof of gross negligence contained in this widely applied precedent. What the majority cites as a “suggestion” of Williams, 879 S.W.2d at 20, n. 11, is in fact its holding; Williams identifies alternative objective and subjective tests for establishing the requisite mental state for gross negligence:
We held in Burk Royalty that the defendant’s state of mind distinguishes gross negligence from negligence; however, we also recognized that a test requiring the plaintiff to prove gross negligence by direct evidence of a defendant’s subjective state of mind would leave outrageous conduct unpunished. Therefore, we held that “[a] mental state may be inferred from actions. All actions or circumstances indicating a state of mind amounting to a conscious indifference must be examined in *42deciding if there is some evidence of gross negligence.” Burk Royalty, 616 S.W.2d at 922. We reaffirm our holding in Burk Royalty that the plaintiff need not prove the defendant’s subjective state of mind by direct evidence.
Thus, the test for gross negligence is both an objective and subjective test. A plaintiff may prove a defendant’s gross negligence by proving that the defendant had actual subjective knowledge that his conduct created an extreme degree of risk. In addition, a plaintiff may objectively prove a defendant’s gross negligence by proving that under the surrounding circumstances a reasonable person would have realized that his conduct created an extreme degree of risk to the safety of others.
699 S.W.2d at 573 (emphasis added).20
The majority today decides to extirpate this passage not by expressly overruling Williams, but by characterizing its clear and unmistakable language as “misleading.”21 879 S.W.2d at 22. Up until now, neither we nor any of the other state or federal courts that have had occasion to interpret Williams have found anything misleading about this language. In Clifton v. Southern Pacific Transp. Co., 709 S.W.2d 636, 640 (Tex.1986), we reiterated that
[r]equiring the plaintiff to prove gross negligence only by direct evidence of a defendant’s subjective state of mind ... raises an almost insurmountable barrier to recovery. Recognizing this dilemma, we held in Burk Royalty that a mental state may be inferred from actions. Considering all actions or circumstances indicating a state of mind amounting to conscious indifference to the rights of others, a plaintiff may objectively prove a defendant’s gross negligence by proving that, under the surrounding circumstances, a reasonable person would have realized that his conduct created an extreme degree of risk to the safety of others.
(citations omitted). This too has been the consistent reading of Williams by every Texas court of appeals that has had occasion to interpret it.
The federal courts have similarly recognized that
Texas courts have made clear that the state of mind required to constitute gross negligence can be shown by objective evidence ... proving that, under the circumstances, a reasonable person would have realized that his conduct created an extreme degree of risk to the safety of others.
Denham v. United States, 834 F.2d 518, 522 (5th Cir.1987); see also Toomer v. United Resin Adhesives, Inc., 652 F.Supp. 219, 225-26 (N.D.Ill.1986) (Texas law allows proof of “defendant’s gross negligence by proving that under the surrounding circumstances a reasonable person would have realized that his conduct created an extreme degree of risk to the safety of others”).
All of these rulings say the opposite of what the majority now adopts as new state law. No longer can common law gross negligence be established by evidence of circumstances which would have shown an aware*43ness of an extreme risk by a reasonable person.22
Williams’ articulation of an objective standard of mental culpability was solidly rooted in this Court’s past precedent. In Brooke v. Clark, 57 Tex. 105, 106 (1882), for example, punitive damages were awarded against a physician who, during the birth of the plaintiff, tied “a ligature around [the plaintiffs] penis, instead of the umbilical cord, ... whereby the glands of the penis came entirely off.” Even though no evidence of the physician’s actual mental state was introduced to prove conscious indifference,23 the jury verdict was upheld:
The criminal indifference of the defendant to results was a fact which the jury were at liberty to infer from the gross mistake which he either made or permitted to be made, and the grievous injury which was liable to result and did result therefrom. If there was any other evidence tending to negative any wrong intent or actual indifference on his part, still the existence or non-existence of such criminal indifference was a question of fact for the jury, and was rightly submitted to them. If the conduct of the defendant in the discharge of his duty ... was so grossly negligent as to raise the presumption of his criminal indifference as to results, we very greatly doubt whether it should avail to exempt him from exemplary damages, for him to show that he had no bad motive, and that he acted otherwise in a manner tending to show that he was not, at heart, indifferent.
*4457 Tex. at 113-14. Brooke and Williams are entirely consistent with fundamental principles of law obscured and denigrated by the majority, such as the important role of punitive damages in enforcing standards of conduct.24
In reversing Williams, however, the majority both redefines gross negligence to provide special protection to those who choose not to be aware of the consequences of their actions and creates a new evidentiary barrier to proving this restricted redefinition of gross negligence, thereby taking from juries the ability to pass community judgment on whole categories of wrongdoers. The majority seems eager to free those causing grievous injury to others from the obligation to reasonably think or perceive or to summon up even the most minimal awareness possessed by a reasonable person. Ultimately, today’s writing holds that an insurance company can go unpunished unless the policyholder it victimized can prove not only unusual harm from the misconduct but also that the insurer knew or expected the unusual to happen.
Although I would not prejudge the trial court’s articulation of the facts on remand, it is important to acknowledge that the majority has deliberately disregarded evidence of gross negligence contained in the record. According to Moriel, actual conscious indifference is shown by the testimony of Transportation’s adjustor, who acknowledged the wrongfulness of an insurer in failing to pay submitted medical bills unless a controversion was filed with the Industrial Accident Board.25 Yet Transportation failed to controvert any of four bills that it refused to pay until settlement. Payment of one of these was denied, and ultimately delayed more than two years after the request for treatment, even though Moriel had received permission for treatment from Transportation, after being sent back three times to three different physicians for referrals. Transportation’s adjustor described her practice of sometimes consciously declining to notify an injured worker of the insurer’s decision to deny payment. Because of her intentional decision not to respond to Monel’s request, he was forced to defend a collections suit. The adjustor admitted, moreover, that such delays could cause harm additional to that resulting from the work-related injury.
VI.
A.
Attacks on the concept of punitive damages are certainly not new. At about the time that Texas was enshrining this remedy in its fundamental governing law, another state’s highest court decried punitive damages as “a monstrous heresy ... an unsightly and an unhealthy excrescence, deforming the symmetry of the body of the law.” Fay v. Parker, 53 N.H. 342, 382 (1873). More recent opposition, while conceding that “[p]u-nitive damages may have served a valuable function in the scheme of ancient law,” reveals the same philosophy, claiming that the “doctrine is monstrously archaic” and calling for its abolition or emasculation. James B. Sales & Kenneth B. Cole, Jr., Punitive Damages: A Relic That Has Outlived Its Origin, 37 Vand.L.Rev. 1171, 1178 (1984).
If punitive damages cannot be formally eliminated, opponents urge mechanisms for their effective elimination, such as requiring that a jury find proof of gross negligence “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. at 1167.26 *45To support such an abrupt change in our well recognized jurisprudence, these opponents point to most any case in which substantial punitive damages have been assessed. See id. at 1141 n. 117 (claiming that the need for change is exemplified by the verdict regarding the fiery deaths resulting from a conscious corporate decision to avoid safer gas tank design in Grimshaw v. Ford Motor Co., 119 Cal.App.3d 757, 174 Cal.Rptr. 348 (1981)); Punitive Damages, 78 Iowa L.Rev. at 21 (discussing opponents’ claims as “theoretical and of the ‘school of tort reform by anecdote’ or ‘isolated fact’ ”); Stephen Daniels and Joanne Martin, Myth and Reality in Punitive Damages, 75 Minn.L.Rev. 1, 14 (1990) (opponents use “horror stories and anecdotes” rather than hard data).
The incidence and amount of punitive damages may indicate a deficiency in our legal system or may be reflective of a community determination of a gross deficiency in conduct. Since punitive or exemplary damages often emanate from most nonexemplary conduct, in any fine tuning of the law, we must consider what degree of change is justified by the empirical data.
B.
Available data demonstrates that punitive damages are actually assessed far more infrequently than critics suggest. After reviewing more than 25,000 civil jury verdicts from 1981-1985 in 47 counties in 11 states, the American Bar Foundation concluded that all four of the central propositions27 upon which those attacking punitive damages rely are factually insupportable. See Daniels and Martin, 75 Minn.L.Rev. at 4. Less than five percent of all jury verdicts included findings of punitive damages. Id. at 32 (Table II). With the exception of five California counties, median28 punitive damage awards in the various jurisdictions were all below $40,000. Id. at 42 (Table VI). The American Bar Foundation’s conclusions are corroborated by the findings of a comprehensive survey of products liability verdicts between 1965 and 1990 that:
[pjunitive damages are infrequently awarded and often scaled down in the post-trial period.... punitive damages awards in nonasbestos products liability cases decreased between 1986 and 1990.29
A similar survey of federal products liability verdicts from 1982-84 found that punitive damages were awarded and upheld on appeal in only three percent of the cases. See William M. Landes & Richard A. PosneR, The Economic STRUCTURE of ToRT Law 302-07 (1987).30
*46Those who oppose our longstanding reliance upon trial by jury automatically assume that a sizeable verdict indicates an inappropriate decision by the jury rather than by the wrongdoer. But recent research emphasizes that the possibility of punitive damages
discourag[ed] firms from marketing dangerous products or failing to recall them. The vast majority of dangerous products have been recalled, modified and redesigned by their manufacturers ...
The study's central finding is that bad products were made better or taken off the market. There is little evidence that good products were withdrawn unnecessarily by potential punitive damages exposure.
Punitive Damages, at 79-80. After identifying as examples twenty-one products that were either improved or recalled following punitive damages verdicts, id. at 81-82, the study concludes:
Restricting this remedy reduces the incentives for safety and may tempt corporations to put profits ahead of the public interest. Eliminating punitive damages would have the effect of lowering safety standards. In the long run, the American emphasis on safety, backed by the social control of punitive damages, will produce the top quality products needed to compete in the international marketplace.
Id. at 85. Moreover, punitive damages verdicts in 355 products liability cases nationwide for the period from 1965-1990, see Demystifying Punitive Damages, at 23, compare with an estimated 29,000 deaths and 33 million injuries annually that are associated with consumer products. U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, Who We Aee, What We Do 1 (1987). Given the increasing size of the injury pool and myriad other potential contributing factors to changes in punitive damages verdicts,31 the data for an abrupt, radical change is simply lacking.
C.
So strong is the majority’s desire to legislate concerning punitive damages that it misinterprets a statute, wholly inapplicable here, to provide a meaning contrary to both its plain wording and the underlying legislative intent. Since 1987 when the term “gross negligence” was removed from common law development for most types of tort actions and defined by legislative enactment, the role for our judiciary on this subject has been limited principally to statutory enforcement. Having been commenced before the effective date of this statute, September 2, 1987, Mor-iel’s claim is one of a limited number of lawsuits still subject to the common law definition of gross negligence.32 Not content to decide only one of a small and decreasing number of cases, the majority seeks to rewrite a statute, which is in no way applicable here:
“Gross negligence” means more than momentary thoughtlessness, inadvertence, or error of judgment. It means such an entire want of care as to establish that the act or omission was the result of actual conscious indifference to the rights safety, or welfare of the person affected.
Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code § 41.001(5) (Supp. 1994). That the word “extreme” never appears in this definition does not deter the frustrated legislators, who compose the current majority, from adopting an amendment to add an “extreme degree of risk” compo*47nent. 879 S.W.2d at 28. To the extent that others may share the majority’s enthusiasm for eliminating punitive damages, we have a forum in our democracy that can weigh such conflicting views and evaluate the empirical evidence in public hearings. The appropriate avenue for relief in Texas is not through the type of crude manipulation of the law that has occurred here but rather at the Legislature — the same place to which the “tort reformers” turned in 1987.33
VII.
Punitive damages have played a necessary role in preserving the public health and safety and societal confidence in law enforcement. In today’s complex technological world that role retains continuing significance. By penalizing those who consciously disregard others’ rights, punitive damages provide important incentives for the implementation of critical safety measures. At the same time, by holding accountable those actors whose behavior society considers most outrageous, such damages reinforce the boundaries of acceptable conduct and thereby instill greater public trust.
None of this, however, means our system is perfect — undoubtedly some defendants are improperly punished just as some wrongdoers are unjustly assessed no punitive damages. Thus, I favor improving our existing approach rather than abandoning it. Today I would have joined in an attempt to make that system more fair to the wrongdoer, but I must dissent vigorously from today’s decision to engage in unprecedented wholesale revision of the law of our state in order to protect the insurance industry from the judgment of the community.34 A judge’s desire to further a social policy objective has unfortunately once again overcome sound jurisprudence.

. Rather than bifurcation, Transportation proposed in a motion in limine to prohibit introduction of evidence of its financial status "until sufficient evidence [of liability for punitive damages] ha[d] been introduced to warrant [such] introduction;” the trial court granted this relief. Not until its motion for new trial did Transportation belatedly make any request for bifurcation. Nor did it request bifurcation in its application for writ of etTor.

. In its quest to radically rewrite the state's tort law, the majority ignores the prudential limitations applicable to the judicial branch of govemment. Besides deciding a bifurcation issue that was not before the Court, the majority purports to make significant revisions to the law governing an insurer’s duty of good faith and fair dealing even though Transportation’s liability for a bad faith breach was not at issue here. See infra notes 13-16 and accompanying text. The majority also purports to render an interpretation of the statutory definition of gross negligence found in the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, even though this case is not governed by that statute. See infra note 22 and note 33 and accompanying text.

. See Hammond, v. City of Gadsden, 493 So.2d 1374, 1379 (Ala.1986); O’Dell v. Basabe, 119 Idaho 796, 810 P.2d 1082, 1092 (1991); Medical Mut. Liab. Ins. Soc. v. B. Dixon Evander & Assocs., 92 Md.App. 551, 609 A.2d 353, 368-69 (1992) (not per se required, but trial court's failure to explain reasoning may constitute abuse of discretion); GN Danavox, Inc. v. Starkey Labs., Inc., 476 N.W.2d 172, 177 (Minn.App.1991); Gamble v. Stevenson, 305 S.C. 104, 406 S.E.2d 350, 354 (1991); Hodges v. S.C. Toof & Co., 833 S.W.2d 896, 902 (Tenn.1992); Garnes v. Fleming Landfill, Inc., 186 W.Va. 656, 413 S.E.2d 897, 910 (1991).

. See Cole v. Control Data Corp., 947 F.2d 313 (8th Cir.1991); Union National Bank v. Mosbacher, 933 F.2d 1440, 1448 (8th Cir.1991); American Employers Ins. Co. v. Southern Seeding Services, Inc., 931 F.2d 1453, 1458 (11th Cir.1991); Robertson Oil Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 930 F.2d 1342, 1347 (8th Cir.1991).

. "Most likely being led down the garden path, Susan Kerr is now directed back to the trial court to pursue this new cause of action, in which those who are injured are 'seldom successful.’ ” Id. at 609 (Doggett, J., dissenting on rehearing) (quoting Twyman v. Twyman, 855 S.W.2d 619, 631 (Tex.1993) (Hecht, J., dissenting)).

. 2 State Bar of Texas, TexPattern Jury Charges § 29.03 (1992).

. Punitive damages were also recognized in Roman Law and in the Vedic Law of Manu. Michael Rustad & Thomas Koenig, The Historical Continuity of Punitive Damages: Reforming the Tort Reformers, 42 Am.U.L.Rev. 1264, 1285-86, (1993) [hereinafter, Continuity of PunitivesJ

. Moreover, an informer, as a qui tarn plaintiff, could file ordinary general writs against individuals who had wronged the King. Note, The History and Development of Qui Tam, 1972 Wash. U.L.Q. 81, 87 (Since the thirteenth century private individuals could bring qui tarn lawsuits to protect the King's interests). By the fifteenth century, statutes were enacted to ensure that the qui tarn plaintiff received a share of the recovery assessed against the defendants. Id. Qui tarn causes of action, permitting a civil litigant who had suffered no individualized injury to recover noncompensatory penalties from wrongdoers, have "been in existence ... in this country ever since the foundation of our government." Marvin v. Trout, 199 U.S. 212, 225, 26 S.Ct. 31, 34-35, 50 L.Ed. 157 (1905).

. Delegate F.W. Sumner’s motion to strike this provision was defeated 40 to 29. 1 Debates Of The Reconstruction Convention Of 1868 756 (1870). As approved, it read:
Every person, corporation or company, that may commit a homicide through wilful act or omission, shall be responsible in exemplary damages to the widow, heirs, legal representatives or creditors, of his or her body, or such of them as there may be, separately and consecutively, without regard to any criminal proceeding that may or may not be had in relation to the homicide.

. See Quinlan v. Houston & Tex. Central Ry., 89 Tex. 356, 34 S.W. 738, 744 (1896) (explaining that, pursuant to a proclamation of U.S. President Andrew Johnson, this convention met to restore the Constitution of 1845 and disavow the 1861 Secession Convention); see also Grigsby v. Peak, 57 Tex. 142, 145, 150-51 (1882).

.The Committee on General Provisions, chaired by Delegate C.S. West of Travis County, reported a proposed section identical to the 1869 Constitution, except for punctuation and the omission of the phrase, "separately and consecutively.” Journal Of The 1875 Constitutional Convention 557 (1875). The only further change made was on the motion of Delegate William H. Stewart of Galveston County to add "or gross neglect” after "omission.” Id. at 701.

. See also Lunsford v. Morris, 746 S.W.2d 471, 471-72 (Tex.1988); Hofer v. Lavender, 679 S.W.2d 470, 474-75 (Tex.1984); Pace v. State, 650 S.W.2d 64, 65 (Tex.1983); Pan Am. Petroleum Corp. v. Hardy, 370 S.W.2d 904, 908 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1963, writ ref’d n.r.e.); Burlington-Rock Island R.R. v. Newsom, 239 S.W.2d 734, 737 (Tex.Civ.App. — Waco 1951, no writ); Schutz v. Morris, 201 S.W.2d 144, 147 (Tex.Civ.App.— Austin 1947, no writ).

. Only within this month, more than a year after it filed its application for writ of error, did Transportation seek to amend its application to challenge its liability on the bad faith claim. This motion was properly denied.

. Hudson Energy involved the reversal by the court of appeals of a bad faith judgment on no evidence grounds based at least in part on the plaintiff's own testimony that the claims adjustor had not unreasonably delayed the claim. 780 S.W.2d at 426-27. Since the policyholder never appealed this part of the judgment, we never considered, much less "affirmed,” the court of appeals' analysis of the bad faith claim.

.See Wilson v. Wilson, 145 Tex. 607, 201 S.W.2d 226, 227 (1947) ("[The] Supreme Court is not invested with the power to determine facts.”); Choate v. San Antonio & A.P. Ry., 91 Tex. 406, 44 S.W. 69, 69 (1898) (Constitution restricts this Court to questions of law). As we said in Browning-Ferris, Inc. v. Reyna, 865 S.W.2d 925, 928 (Tex.1993),
In reviewing a "no evidence” point, this Court "must consider only the evidence and inferences tending to support the jury’s finding, viewed most favorably in support of the finding, and disregard all contrary evidence and inferences.” Havner v. E-Z Mart Stores, Inc., 825 S.W.2d 456, 458 (Tex.1992); State v. $11,-*40014.00, 820 S.W.2d 783 (Tex.1991); Garza v. Alviar, 395 S.W.2d 821, 823 (Tex.1965).

. The majority, discussing appellate review of punitive damage awards, laments the constitutional limitations on its ability to review and reverse jury findings. 879 S.W.2d at 28-29.

. Neither Texas case cited by the majority is relevant. Jim Walter Homes, Inc. v. Reed, 711 S.W.2d 617, 618 (Tex.1986), stands only for the well-accepted proposition that exemplary damages cannot be recovered in the absence of a tort. In Ware v. Paxton, 359 S.W.2d 897, 899 (Tex.1962), the type of conduct of the defendant, not the nature of the injury to the plaintiffs, was the reason for rejecting such damages.

.At best, two of the nine foreign cases cited, 879 S.W.2d at 19, Shimola v. Nationwide Ins. Co., 25 Ohio St.3d 84, 495 N.E.2d 391, 392 n. 1, 393 (1986) and Guarantee Abstract & Title Co. v. Interstate Fire & Cas. Co., 232 Kan. 76, 652 P.2d 665, 668 (1982), merely hold that punitive damages are not recoverable on a contract claim; neither involved viable tort claims. See also Glenn v. Fleming, 247 Kan. 296, 799 P.2d 79, 89 (1990) (Kansas does not recognize the tort of breach of duty of good faith and fair dealing).
In a not too subtle manner, the majority seeks to incorporate into Texas law the law of other jurisdictions that refuse entirely to subject insurers to any liability for bad faith torts. See 879 S.W.2d at 19, n. 9.

. This ruling also conflicts with the well-established law in most jurisdictions recognizing the bad faith tort, which allow punitive damages where an insurer willfully or recklessly withholds policy benefits, without requiring that the insured suffer extensive consequential damages. See, e.g., Continental Assurance Co. v. Kountz, 461 So.2d 802, 809 (Ala.1984); Hawkins v. Allstate Ins. Co., 152 Ariz. 490, 733 P.2d 1073, 1079-80 (1987); Employers Equitable Life Ins. Co. v. Williams, 282 Ark. 29, 665 S.W.2d 873, 873-74 (1984); Hagel v. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina, 91 N.C.App. 58, 370 S.E.2d 695, 699 (1988); Berry v. Nationwide Mut. Fire Ins. Co., 181 W.Va. 168, 381 S.E.2d 367, 374 (1989).

. It is particularly disingenuous for the majority to refer to this holding as a “suggestion,” while relying on commentary quoting this very passage as an important holding. See John T. Montford & Will G. Barber, 1987 Texas Tort Reform: the Quest for a Fairer and More Predictable Texas Civil Justice System (pt. 2), 25 HousX.Rev. 245, 324 (1988).

. As in Alexander, 868 S.W.2d at 325-26, the majority plays word games with the terms "objective" and "subjective” to obfuscate the clear language of Williams. There are two components to gross negligence: (1) the mental state of the defendant and (2) the degree to which his conduct puts the plaintiff at risk. As the numerous authorities cited above explain, the subjective and objective tests identified in Williams are both used to determine whether the defendant possessed the requisite mental component, i.e. conscious indifference. The majority does not use the words “subjective” and "objective” in this way, however, perhaps because it denies that Williams even permitted an objective test for conscious indifference. The majority now confusingly chooses to refer to the entire first component, the mental state, as the "subjective” component of gross negligence. 879 S.W.2d at 21; Alexander, 868 S.W.2d at 326. The term "objective” no longer refers to one test for the defendant’s mental state; but rather to the second component of gross negligence, the extreme degree of risk. 879 S.W.2d at 21; Alexander, 868 S.W.2d at 326.

. Although this is not a case in which the new statutory definition of gross negligence applies, see infra, note 32, and accompanying text, the majority suggests that its new common law definition of gross negligence should be used in all cases, even those subject to the Tort Reform Act. 879 S.W.2d at 21. Although in this dictum the majority takes the position that the legislature has eliminated Williams’ objective test for determining actual conscious indifference, the majority also asserts that the "Tort Reform Act codified the common law definition and made no changes affecting the basic elements of gross negligence.” 879 S.W.2d at 20. The Senate floor debate on the statute in question reveals no mention of either Williams or any desire to alter the objective method of proving conscious indifference. To the contrary, the legislative sponsor, Senator John Montford, suggested that gross negligence could encompass highly risky acts of ordinary negligence which result from mistaken, rather than knowledgeable, behavior. See Debate on Tex. S.B. 287 on the Floor of the Senate, 70th Leg. 3-9 (May 6, 1987) (transcript of tapes available from Senate Staff Services Office). Senator Montford further explained that the statutory definition encompasses conduct that falls between criminal conduct and ordinary negligence. Id. In other words, the requirements for a culpable mental state should be the least restrictive for ordinary negligence (i.e. no knowledge or intent required) and the most narrow for criminal negligence, while the new statutory civil gross negligence falls somewhere in the middle. Yet the statutory definition of criminal negligence incorporates an objective standard of knowledge like that set forth in Williams:
A person acts with criminal negligence ... when he ought to he aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk that the circumstances exist or the result will occur.
TexPen.Code § 6.03(d) (emphasis added). If one can be liable for criminal penalties for failing to be aware of a substantial and unjustifiable risk, then, as suggested by Senator Montford during debate, that same failure creates liability for punitive damages. The Tort Reform Act codified the objective test for conscious indifference found in the common law until today. For this reason, and because this case is not governed by the statutory definition of gross negligence, today’s radical redefinition of common law gross negligence should not be controlling in future cases subject to the statutory definition.
Under most circumstances, it is such exchanges by the legislators while considering the enactment that offer an indication of legislative intent. Compare General Chemical Corp. v. De La Lastra, 852 S.W.2d 916, 923 (Tex.1993) (the post debate professed “intent of an individual legislator, even a statute’s principal author, is not legislative history controlling the construction to be given a statute.”); C & H Nationwide, Inc. v. Thompson, 37 Tex.Sup.Ct.J. 149, 165 (Nov. 24, 1993) (Doggett, J., concurring) (accepting legislative author’s post debate description of legislative process because rather than being an "after-the-fact, self-serving [statement] of a single legislator or an attempt to embellish and expand language that the legislature did not approve, [it was] really the legislative equivalent of an admission against interest”).

. The testimony in this case shows that the defendant was skillful in his profession; that he seemed anxious to discharge his whole duty; desired to be sent for to adjust the ligature should it become detached; no reason or motive is shown why he should carelessly, much less willfully, have caused the injury; on the contrary, his own interest and reputation, to say nothing of the ordinary promptings of humanity to render aid and not to inflict injury under such circumstances, would seem conclusively to have prohibited intentional wrong.
57 Tex. at 117 (Bonner, J., dissenting).

. [W]hen we are dealing with that part of the law which aims more directly than any other at establishing standards of conduct, we should expect there more than elsewhere to find that the tests of liability are external and independent of the degree of evil in the particular person's motives or intentions.
Holmes, The Common Law at 43.

. Apparently this bothered the adjustor more than it does the majority. Today's opinion specifically seems to offer insurers a complete excuse for engaging in this practice, which Transportation's own agent conceded to be wrong. 879 S.W.2d at 25 n. 18.

.Though flirting with such heightened proof requirements, the majority finally decides that this Court should not impose as a prerequisite for punitive damages the same clear and convincing evidence standard that the Legislature has already rejected. See 879 S.W.2d 31. I certainly agree with this conclusion. Not only is such a standard “not constitutionally compelled,” id., it would also represent a total divergence from one of the most firmly established *45principles of our jurisprudence. Only in an extraordinary circumstance such as where we have been mandated to impose a more onerous burden has this Court abandoned the well established preponderance of the evidence standard. See Addington v. Texas, 441 U.S. 418, 427, 99 S.Ct. 1804, 1810, 60 L.Ed.2d 323 (1979). Not until remand did we adopt a "clear and convincing evidence” standard in civil commitment cases. See State v. Addington, 588 S.W.2d 569, 570 (Tex.1979); see also In the Interest of G.M., 596 S.W.2d 846, 847 (Tex.1980) (relying on Add-ington, establishing that the clear and convincing evidence standard applies to the involuntary termination of parental rights).

. "All other claims about the harmful effects of punitive damages presume the accuracy of [four] propositions”: 1) punitive damages are routinely awarded; 2) they are awarded in large amounts; 3) the frequency and size of the awards has been rapidly increasing; and 4) these phenomena are national in scope. Daniels and Martin, 75 Minn.L.Rev. at 14.

. Punitive damages critics consistently cite the mean, or average, amount of punitive verdicts as evidence that they are "skyrocketing,” and avoid mentioning the median, or figure above which half of the verdicts fall. Daniels and Martin, 75 Minn.L.Rev. at 41. The median is much more representative whenever there are more extreme cases at one end of the distribution than the other. Id. at 40 (citing Hubert Blalock, Social Statistics 69-70 (rev. 2d ed. 1979)). Because there are a few very large punitive damages claims, the median verdict, which is not skewed by these exceptional cases, accords a more accurate representation of the pattern of verdicts as a whole.

. Michael Rustad, Demystifying Punitive Damages In Products Liability Cases: A Survey Of A Quarter Century Of Trial Verdicts 38 (Roscoe Pound Foundation, 1991) [hereinafter Demystifying Punitive Damages],

. See also Michael J. Saks, Do We Really Know Anything About the Behavior of the Tort Litigation System — And Why Not? 140 U.PaH.Rev. 1147, 1251 (1992) (concluding that a wide variety of data "are not consistent with the conclusion that jury awards [for punitive damages] have in general risen sharply”); J.O. Clements, Comment, Limiting Punitive Damages: A Placebo for Amer-*46tea's Ailing Competitiveness, 24 St. Mary’s LJ. 197, 212-15 (1992) (rebutting former Vice President Dan Quayle’s contention that punitive damages are both “freakish” and "routine").

. Even if the empirical data demonstrated an increase in the frequency and amount of punitive damages verdicts, more must be known:
Any inference about whether the average size of awards or settlements has gone up, down, or remained level, in real terms, depends upon knowing what the pool of injuries looks like. If the pool of injuries has increased and the inherent seriousness of the injuries or the cost of repairing them has increased, one should not be surprised to find a commensurate increase in cases or awards.
Saks, 140 U.Pa.L.Rev. at 1174.

. This statutory definition of gross negligence may not apply to tort actions for bad faith. Stephen Pate, Insurance Bad Faith: Defendant’s Perspective, in Texas Torts In The 90’s at C-10 (1992) ("It is an open question whether the exemplary damages limitation applies to a common law breach of the duty of good faith and fair dealing.”). However, with the majority’s recent rulings, there will now quite clearly be a small and decreasing category of bad faith cases.

. As two scholars point out.
The debate [regarding punitive damages] changed in the 1980's as part of an intense, well-organized, and well-financed political campaign by interest groups seeking fundamental reforms in the civil justice system benefiting themselves.
Stephen Daniels and Joanne Martin, Myth and Reality in Punitive Damages, 75 Minn.L.Rev. 1, 10 (1990). In fact, ‘‘[s]ince the mid-1980's, a majority of states have enacted tort reforms curbing punitive damages.” Punitive Damages, 78 Iowa L.Rev. at 6. The Texas debate played itself out in the fight over passage of the 1987 tort reform package, which has been well documented. Senator John Montford’s sponsorship of broad "tort reform” legislation advanced by the insurance industry and other lobby groups operating under the title "Texas Civil Justice League” is described in John T. Montford & Will G. Barber, 1987 Texas Tort Reform: the Quest for a Fairer and More Predictable Texas Civil Justice System (pts. 1-2), 25 Hous.L.Rev. 59, 245, 324 (1988). That battle resulted in, among other things, a statutory cap on punitive damages to the greater of four times compensatory damages or $200,000. Tex Civ.Prac. & Rem.Code § 41.007 (1988). The constitutionality of that limitation is not at issue here.

. Today’s writing does, of course, represent more than a special favor to the insurance industry; it is equally applicable to any wrongdoer, including those who continue to manufacture dangerous products. 879 S.W.2d at 25-26. The majority has concluded generally that the deterrence of wrongful conduct offered by punitive damages is unnecessary because just "the prospect of being sued and having to defend oneself have a substantive deterrent effect” and compensatory damages are a quite sufficiently "powerful deterrent.” Id. n. 21.