Court Opinion

ID: 9770722
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:19:56.615904+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:20.074276
License: Public Domain

O’CONNOR, Justice,
dissenting.
I dissent.
The purpose of summary judgment is speedily to resolve a lawsuit where there are no fact issues, only legal ones. Beech Aircraft Corp. v. Jinkins, 698 S.W.2d 722, 728 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1985), aff'd, *114739 S.W.2d 19 (Tex.1987). This ease is replete with fact issues and should not be resolved by summary judgment.
To affirm this ease, the majority turns the summary judgment procedure upside down. Contrary to the rules of summary judgment procedure, the majority indulges every inference in favor of the movant for summary judgment (Collins), reviews the evidence in the light most favorable to the movant, assumes all the evidence in favor of the movant is true, and resolves all doubts as to the existence of a genuine issue of material fact in favor of the movant. Harwell v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 896 S.W.2d 170, 173 (Tex.1995); Roark v. Stallworth Oil & Gas, Inc., 813 S.W.2d 492, 495 (Tex.1991). Once the majority finds a fact issue (and it does), it then resolves the fact issue against the non-movant, instead of remanding the case for trial.
No discovery has been conducted in this case. The purpose of summary judgment is not to deprive a litigant of a trial by jury. Rogers v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 761 S.W.2d 788, 795 (Tex.App.—Beaumont 1988, writ denied). Neither is it the purpose to replace a jury trial with a trial by affidavit. Davenport v. Harrison, 711 S.W.2d 340, 341 (Tex.App.-Texarkana 1986, no writ). This case should be remanded for trial.
I agree with the two earlier opinions in this ease, one from the El Paso Court of Appeals, Thomas v. Collins, No. 08-91-00246-CV (Tex.App.-El Paso, Feb. 26, 1992, no writ) (unpublished), and the other from this Court, Thomas v. Collins, 860 S.W.2d 500 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1993, writ denied). Both opinions reversed the trial court’s dismissal and held Dan Thomas adequately pled a 42 U.S.C. § 1983 claim against James A. Collins, the director of TDCJID.
Here, for the first time, and after Thomas has been held for over 11 years in punitive detention, another panel affirms a summary judgment and says that Thomas has no § 1983 claim. Both a summary judgment and a dismissal of a pro se suit under Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code § 13.001 (1997) are based on the pleadings and the absence of facts. Under the law of the case doctrine, we should remand for trial, because the legal issue has already been resolved against Collins by two earlier opinions. Thomas deserves a jury trial.
In his petition, Thomas alleged Collins and his staff (1) denied him rights under the U.S. Constitution’s First and Fourteenth Amendments, (2) violated civil conspiracy laws, (3) violated his Eighth Amendment rights under the U.S. Constitution, and (4) engaged in the intentional infliction of emotional distress. In his summary judgment pleadings, Thomas asserts Collins (1) was directly involved in the decision to keep him segregated, and (2) had constructive or personal knowledge of his situation, but consented to or did not act on it.
This panel holds that Collins was not personally involved in any violations and he could not be held vicariously liable for his subordinates’ violations. In our earlier opinion we said the opposite:
Collins argued ... he cannot be sued because he did not have actual knowledge nor was he directly involved in the alleged events that deprived Thomas of his constitutional rights.
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Reviewing appellant’s pleadings under this standard, [Thomas’] allegations are sufficient to allege that Collins violated his clearly established eight amendment rights. Collins is in a position to reasonably know that confinement in isolation inappropriately or for too long a duration can result in a violation of eight amendment rights.
Thomas, 860 S.W.2d at 502-03.
It is simply incredible that an inmate could have been held in punitive segregation for 11 years without its coming to the attention of Collins, who was deputy director of operations over security for TDCJID, and, since 1990, the director of TDCJID.1 In 1987, as deputy director, Collins was once directly *115involved in Thomas’ detention.2 There is clearly a fact issue here that should survive a motion for summary judgment.
Collins, as a person in authority, cannot escape responsibility for his acts by delegating his duties to others. To believe that Collins did not know about Thomas’ 11 years of punitive segregation, we would have to believe that, as director, Collins had no responsibility for the letters he received from inmates, that he had no responsibility for information contained in lawsuits, filed against him in his personal and official capacity, that have been pending for over six years, and that he had no interest in the inmates who had been in punitive segregation for five years or more. If Collins had no interest or responsibility for the workings of the TDCJID, one wonders what interests and responsibilities he had as director of TDCJID.3
The majority is resolving this case based on a summary judgment affidavit by Collins that he did not do anything, he did not see anything, he did not hear anything that would make him responsible. Yet, by his very position as deputy director and later director, he has responsibility to oversee the TDCJID. A defendant cannot file an affidavit stating that he is not responsible for any of the allegations in the plaintiffs petition, and by that be entitled to a summary judgment, when the plaintiffs petition alleges he was responsible.
As an interested witness, Collins’ affidavit must be clear, positive, direct, credible, free from contradictions, and it must be susceptible to being readily controverted. Tex.R. Crv. P. 166a(c). Collins’ affidavits, which contain self-serving statements of interested parties about what they knew or intended, are not readily controvertible. Font v. Carr, 867 S.W.2d 873, 879 (Tex.App.-Houston [1st Dist.] 1993, no writ) (prosecutor’s affidavit that he acted in good faith could not be readily controverted). When the credibility of the affiant, here Collins, is likely to be a dispositive factor in the resolution of the case, summary judgment is not appropriate. Casso v. Brand, 776 S.W.2d 551, 557 (Tex.1989).
The majority finds that Thomas created a fact issue:
We agree this evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to Thomas, raises a fact issue on Collins’ personal involvement in the alleged violations related to his segregation for this one review period.
Then, after reviewing the summary judgment evidence, it decides the fact issue against Thomas. If Thomas created a fact issue, that issue should be resolved at trial, not in a summary judgment procedure.
I would reverse and remand for a trial.
COHEN and TAFT, JJ., also participating.

. Thomas filed this suit on April 11, 1991, one year after Collins became director of TDCJID. At that time, he had been in detention for six years. Thomas' detention continued during his lawsuit.

. On July 17, 1987, Collins concurred in a UCC decision to maintain Thomas in administrative segregation. The majority reviews that one instance in isolation and decides, on a summary judgment record, that Thomas did not prove Collins violated Thomas’ constitutional rights during that period.

. It is a matter of public record that Collins is presently under investigation by two federal grand juries, one in Texas and one in Louisiana, about conflicts of interest while he was director of TDCJID.