Court Opinion

ID: 9733591
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 17:11:11.919701+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:42.577784
License: Public Domain

WANDA McKEE FOWLER, Justice,
concurring.
I join in all of the majority’s opinion except for its discussion of the punitive damages issues. On that issue, I concur in the result.
The majority opinion has set forth the facts of the case and the issues, so I will not revisit them. I do, however, want to address one aspect of the case that I believe was not fully explored by either of the parties. This is a new section of the civil practice and remedies code, and, as the majority expresses, no case law exists on the applicability of the section to this fact situation.
One problem with this case is, and always has been, that the parties avoided discussing the main statutory issue in the case: when a corporation is sued for its own alleged criminal act but a criminal act of a third party is also responsible for the injuries sued upon, does section 41.00(a) of the Civil Practice and Remedies Code bar exemplary damages? LaPorte has always said simply that Rigby was suing for Morris’s sexual assault of her elderly mother and, therefore, section 41.005(a) bars exemplary damages. Rigby has always responded that she is suing, not for Morris’s sexual assault, but for LaPorte’s commission of injury to an elderly individual, see Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 22.04 (Vernon Supp. 2002); because that is a separate crime that LaPorte committed, section 41.005(a) does not apply. Both are right — at least partly so. LaPorte is right that Rigby is suing for the harm that resulted from *629Morris’s sexual assault of Rigby’s mother, and Rigby is right that she is suing for LaPorte’s alleged commission of injury to an elderly individual. Bub neither La-Porte nor Rigby explained in any detail why the other’s argument was faulty.1 That left us to grapple with the issue ourselves. And, what the majority opinion concludes — I think rightly — is that 41.005(a) does apply. What I want to do in this concurrence is discuss in more detail the reasons for that conclusion and its ramifications.
The first paragraph of the statute provides the following:
(a) In an action arising from harm resulting from an assault ... or other criminal act, a court may not award exemplary damages against a defendant because of the criminal act of another.
Tex. Crv. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 41.005 (Vernon 1997). This paragraph is broadly written, and it appears to apply to this case.
First, clearly, this action arose from, and was brought because of, Morris’s sexual assault of Rigby’s mother. If the sexual assault had not happened, there would not have been a suit. Or, if there had been a suit, it would have to be because Rigby’s mother was injured in some other way on account of LaPorte’s failure to act.
Second, it is impossible to look at this case and say that the jury assessed $50 million in damages against LaPorte and never gave a second thought to Morris’s criminal act. Yes, the jury question asked the jury to assess damages based on La-Porte’s criminal act, but that act has no significance by itself. It can be viewed only in the context of what it failed to prevent: Morris’s rape of a fellow resident of the nursing home. Consequently, for purposes of damages — for any purpose really — the two acts are so intertwined that one cannot be considered without the other. In such a ease, the jury’s award had to be based, at least in part, on the criminal act of another. This is what the statute bars.
According to Rigby’s counsel, this means that any time a third party commits a criminal act, all joint tortfeasors are automatically immune from exemplary damages. They would have us read paragraph (a) to provide that a court may not award exemplary damages against anyone solely because of the criminal act of another. Thus, they want us to conclude that if the corporation was partly responsible (and committed a criminal act) and the third party was partly responsible, a plaintiff could obtain punitive damages. However, paragraph (a) does not contain this limitation. A look at the four situations contained in paragraph (b) — for which a plaintiff can obtain punitive damages against a corporation — helps clarify the issue.
Paragraph (b) provides that in the following situations, a defendant will be liable for exemplary damages in spite of paragraph (a)’s broad proscription against exemplary damages: (1) when an employee of the corporation commits the act; (2) when the corporation itself is criminally responsible as a party2 to the act; (8) *630when the criminal act occurs at a place qualifying as a common nuisance (a place people habitually go for prostitution, gambling, to shoot firearms, to engage in organized crime, or to sell, possess, manufacture or use controlled substances); and (4) when a landlord intentionally or knowingly fails to comply with the Property Code’s requirements to provide certain security devices for tenants.
For two reasons, I believe this subsection answers Rigby’s claim. First, in reading the whole section, we are to assume that the legislature did not commit a vain act — that it listed these situations in paragraph (b) because it thought they were covered by paragraph (a)’s language, and it wanted a plaintiff to be able to obtain punitive damages in these situations. See Mentor Auto., Inc. v. Rum Leasing Co., 44 S.W.3d 86, 90 (Tex.2001) (holding a court should examine the entire statute to determine its meaning); Cayan v. Cayan, 38 S.W.3d 161, 165-66 (Tex.App.-Houston [14th Dist.] 2001, pet. denied) (stating that the court does not “lightly presume that the Legislation did a useless act”). We can reasonably assume, then, the legislature listed in paragraph (b) every situation for which it thought a plaintiff should be able — at least potentially — to obtain punitive damages. Second, a common theme-similar to this case — exists in three of these situations: they each involve a criminal act by a third party in conjunction with a grossly negligent or intentional act by a corporation, so that the criminal act likely would not have occurred without the simultaneous “bad” act of the corporation. For example, if the corporate employer had not hired the employee, the rape would not have occurred; if the corporate landlord had put latches on the windows of its apartments, the assault would not have occurred; if the corporation had not operated an illegal gambling operation, the murder would not have occurred. In these situations — like here — the acts are so intertwined, it is impossible to consider one without the other and one could not have occurred without the other.
If the situations enumerated in paragraph (b) would otherwise fall within paragraph (a), so would this one; if the legislature believed — as it apparently did — that these situations were covered by paragraph (a)’s bar on exemplary damages, so is this one.
In short, in spite of the horrid events of this case, we cannot ignore the plain language of the statute. That language states that a corporation is not liable for exemplary damages because of the criminal act of another. Here, LaPorte was subjected to exemplary damages in part, if not primarily, because of the criminal act of another. For that reason, the damages are barred.3

. Rigby did address the issue in her motion for rehearing but LaPorte has still never addressed the problem head-on.

. The Penal Code defines criminal responsibility for the conduct of another in the following way:
(a) A person is criminally responsible for an offense committed by the conduct of another if:
(1) acting with the kind of culpability required for the offense, he causes or aids an innocent or nonresponsible person to engage in conduct prohibited by the definition of the offense;
*630(2) acting with intent to promote or assist the commission of the offense, he solicits, encourages, directs, aids, or attempts to aid the other person to commit the offense; or
(3) having a legal duty to prevent commission of the offense and acting with intent to promote or assist its commission, he fails to make a reasonable effort to prevent commission of the offense.
Tex. Pen.Code Ann. § 7.02.

. It may very well be that the Legislature did not include this situation only because it did not think of it when it was drafting the section. But, we have to apply what the legislature actually included in the legislation, not what it might have included if it had been able to contemplate the situation.