Court Opinion

ID: 9681216
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 07:46:09.0493+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:17:32.721545
License: Public Domain

PHILLIPS, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I join in all of the majority’s opinion, which I authorized, except for the decision that a portion of the cause should be rendered rather than remanded to the trial court. Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure 180 allows this court to remand a cause or portion of a cause where “it shall appear that the justice of the cause demands another trial.” Tex.R.App.P. 180. I believe this is such a case.
In the past, when this court announced a change in trial practice, and “the new theory or rule required new and different evidence,” Duncan v. Cessna Aircraft Co., 665 S.W.2d 414, 433 (Tex.1984), we have recognized that justice required a remand for further proceedings. See L.M.B. Corp. v. Gurecky, 501 S.W.2d 300, 303 (Tex.1973) (“these changes in the trial practice justify this court’s remand of this cause ... in the interest of justice”); Scott v. Liebman, 404 S.W.2d 288, 294 (Tex.1966) (remand proper *566“when this Court changes the rules after the case has been tried”). See generally Calvert, . In the Interest of Justice,” 4 St. Mary’s L.J. 291 (1972). A remand is especially appropriate in an appeal from a summary judgment, where the parties have not yet been put to the expense of a trial and there is no opportunity for a reviewing court to apply the harmless error rule.
In preparing his response to Casso’s summary judgment motion, Brand was clearly entitled to rely on our recent decisions in Beaumont Enterprise & Journal v. Smith, 687 S.W.2d 729 (Tex.1985), and Bessent v. Times-Herald Printing Co., 709 S.W.2d 635 (Tex.1986). Both of these cases held that a defendant could not support a summary judgment in a public figure defamation case by mere state of mind evidence. As the court recognizes, Casso’s affidavit was simply insufficient summary judgment evidence under existing case law. Until today, Brand was not required under
Texas law to present any evidence in order to defeat Casso’s motion.
I believe the court has acted correctly in overruling Bessent and Beaumont Enterprise. In so doing, however, we should not deny Brand the opportunity to respond to Casso’s proof. Parties should not be required, at the risk of having their day in court, to anticipate that the supreme court will abandon its own precedents. I would therefore remand this entire cause to the trial court for further proceedings.1
COOK, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.

. The position of Justice Mauzy’s concurring and dissenting opinion is confusing and contradictory. While purporting to follow Beaumont Enterprise and Bessent, the opinion would nevertheless reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and render summary judgment for Casso. This judicial legerdemain is wholly unsatisfactory.
Casso’s affidavit cannot support a summary judgment under Beaumont Enterprise and Bessent because it only goes to Casso’s state oí mind. Unlike Channel 4, KGBT v. Briggs, 759 S.W.2d 939 (Tex.1988), the movant here did not establish an objective, verifiable explanation of his lack of malice in making the allegedly defamatory statement. Even Casso makes no assertion that he was entitled to a summary judgment under Beaumont Enterprise and Bessent, but the concurring and dissenting opinion, without any explanation, so concludes.
An additional reason suggested by the concurring and dissenting opinion is that Brand filed no summary judgment proof. This fact is irrelevant. Under Texas law, a respondent has no duty to bring forth any controverting proof unless and until the movant has, by his own proof, established his right to a summary judgment. See City of Houston v. Clear Creek Basin Auth., 589 S.W.2d 671 (Tex.1979). To relax the mov-ant’s burden simply because no response has been filed would in essence be to adopt the federal standard of summary judgment. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986). This is hardly consistent with the opinion's impassioned defense of stare decisis.
The opinion further supports its conclusion by alluding to Brand’s "opportunity to ... attempt to raise a fact issue” during the nearly five-year pendency of this case in the trial court. The implicit suggestion is that a summary judgment should be more favorably viewed when the non-movant has had a long time to conduct discovery and prepare a case. Again, this fact has nothing to do with the standard for granting a summary judgment. The case at bar was filed on July 23, 1981, and in the ensuing years was the subject of several pre-trial and docket control conferences and at least two trial settings. Defendant first moved for summary judgment on February 7,1986. Does this history strengthen the defendant’s motion? If so, the concurring and dissenting opinion must be advocating this rule:
A movant must establish his right to summary judgment as a matter of law unless he is dilatory in bringing his motion, in which event his motion will be granted on lesser proof (or perhaps regardless of proof) unless the respondent comes forth and raises a fact issue.
If this standard is indeed being advocated, it has hardly been articulated with sufficient clarity to permit its application to future cases.
In short, Justice Mauzy’s concurring and dissenting opinion provides the necessary vote to deprive Brand of his day in court as to most of his case without providing any cognizable rationale to support that result. If one believes that Beaumont Enterprise and Bessent should remain the law in Texas, the only course is to join with the dissent in urging the affirmance in all things of the judgment of the court of appeals.