Court Opinion

ID: 9768558
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 06:08:17.243201+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:41.872611
License: Public Domain

OLIVER-PARROTT, Chief Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The $200,000 award for damages under the Texas Tort Claims Act was correct, and should not have been reduced by the majority to $100,000.
The trial judge found the hospital district 35 percent responsible for negligently prescribing for Carolina Gonzales a drug to which they knew she was allergic. Her children, without knowing its destined effect, gave Gonzales that drug and then watched for 16 days as it caused her slow, painful, and horrific death. Appellees (Gonzales’ estate and her children) brought two actions: a survival claim and a wrongful death claim. The judge awarded appellees $100,000 on each claim. The district asserts that the Texas Tort Claims Act limits the damages recoverable for this incident to $100,000. Thus, we must decide if the decedent and the wrongful death beneficiaries are both “persons injured” under the Texas Tort Claims Act, allowing up to $200,000 in damages; $100,000 for the survival claim and $100,000 for the wrongful death claim. I would hold that they are, and affirm the judgment.
Damage Limitation
The hospital district is liable only to the extent that its sovereign immunity has been waived by the Texas Tort Claims Act. The Act limits the district’s liability for bodily injury or death to $100,000 for each person and $300,000 for each occurrence. The limitation provision reads:
Except as provided by Subsection (c), liability of a unit of local government under this chapter is limited to money damages in a maximum amount of $100,000 for each person and $300,000 for each single occurrence for bodily injury or death and $100,-000 for each single occurrence for injury to or destruction of property.
Tex.Civ.PRAC. & Rem.Code Ann. § 101.023(b) (Vernon Supp.1993).
The district argues, and the majority holds, that the “per person” language in the Act refers to the person injured (the deceased), not to the persons who suffer loss as a result of injury to someone else (the wrongful death beneficiaries). The majority then reduces the $200,000 judgment to $100,000, and awards it, by implication, only to the survival claim.1 I disagree with this inter*768pretation of the Act and with the result that follows. If persons who suffer loss as a result of the death of someone else (the wrongful death beneficiaries) are not “persons injured” under the Act, then wrongful death claims could only succeed under the Act if there is no valid survival action. That holding runs contrary to the supreme court authority cited by the majority. Simply stated, appellees are entitled to $200,000 because they brought claims under two different statutes that grant relief for two different injuries suffered by two different parties: (1) the survival claim compensates Gonzales for her injury; and (2) the wrongful death claim compensates her children for them injuries.
The Injury to Gonzales: The Survival Action
The evidence shows that the district caused severe injuries to Carolina Gonzales, injuries that led to her gruesome death. Historically, a person’s cause of action for personal injuries did not survive their death. Rose v. Doctors Hosp., 801 S.W.2d 841, 845 (Tex.1990). The common law was abrogated when the legislature created what is called the survival statute. Tex.Civ.Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 71.021 (Vernon 1986).2 This statute is designed to allow the decedent’s estate, on her behalf, to recover for the damages the decedent sustained while alive. The supreme court recently described the survival action as follows:
By this statute, a decedent’s action survives his death and may be prosecuted in his behalf. The survival action, as it is sometimes called, is wholly derivative of the decedent’s rights. The actionable wrong is that ivhich the decedent suffered before his death. The damages recoverable are those ivhich he himself sustained while he was alive and not any damages claimed independently by the survival action plaintiffs (except that funeral expenses may also be recovered if they were not awarded in a wrongful death action). Any recovery obtained flows to those who would have recovered it had he obtained it immediately prior to his death — that is, his heirs, legal representatives and estate.
Russell v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., 841 S.W.2d 343, 345 (Tex.1992) (citations omitted) (emphasis added.)
Here, the majority correctly found the evidence sufficient to sustain the $100,000 damages award to Gonzales and her estate under the survival claim. Without question, Carolina Gonzales is a “person injured” under the Tort Claims Act, and her estate is entitled to the $100,000 award.
The Injury to the Children: The Wrongful Death Action
In addition to injuring Carolina Gonzales, the district also injured Gonzales’ children when it caused her death. At common law, no cause of action could be brought for the death of another person. Rose, 801 S.W.2d at 845. The legislature, however, has also abrogated this rule by creating the wrongful death action. Tex.Civ.PRAC. & Rem.Code Ann. § 71.002 (Vernon 1986).3 A wrongful death action is separate and distinct from a survival action. The survival action recovers for the personal injuries suffered by the de*769ceased before death and benefits whomever is the beneficiary of the decedent’s estate. See Tex.Civ.Peac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 71.021 (Vernon 1986). The wrongful death action is “for the exclusive benefit of the surviving spouse, children, and parents of the deceased.” Section 71.004(a). Clearly, the legislature believed wrongful death beneficiaries should be allowed to recover for their own injuries, independent of the injuries suffered by the deceased; “The jury may award damages in an amount proportionate to the injury resulting from the death.” Section 71.-010(a) (emphasis added). A factfinder may award a decedent’s family damages for their pecuniary loss, mental anguish, loss of society, companionship and affection, and loss of inheritance. Yowell v. Piper Aircraft Corp., 703 S.W.2d 630, 635-36 (Tex.1986); Sanchez v. Schindler, 651 S.W.2d 249, 259 (Tex.1983) (op. on reh’g). Thus, the $100,000 award on the wrongful death action compensates Gonzales’ children for the injuries the district caused them.
The majority agrees that the factfinder in a wrongful death claim may award a decedent’s family damages for them injuries, and outlines the evidence of the damages suffered by the wrongful death claimants (Gonzales’ children). The majority then rejects the district’s factual sufficiency challenge, and finds the evidence sufficient to support the damage award of $100,000. Yet, despite finding that the wrongful death claimants suffered $100,-000 in damages, the majority concludes those claimants are not “persons injured” for purposes of the Act. That conclusion, the majority asserts, is compelled by two supreme court cases interpreting the Act: Madisonville Independent School District v. Kyle, 658 S.W.2d 149 (Tex.1983), and City of Austin v. Cooksey, 570 S.W.2d 386 (Tex.1978).
In Kyle, a child was killed, and the trial court awarded more than $100,000 to the parents for a wrongful death claim. 658 S.W.2d at 150. Similarly, in Cooksey, a man was killed, and the lower courts made and affirmed an award of more than $100,000 to the widow, mother, and children for a wrongful death claim. 570 S.W.2d at 387-88. In both eases, the supreme court limited the liability under the Act, for a wrongful death claim, to $100,000. The court reasoned that an action for wrongful death is one action, no matter how many claimants are separately injured by the death. Kyle, 658 S.W.2d at 150; Cooksey, 570 S.W.2d at 387-88. Thus, in Kyle and Cooksey, the supreme court made it clear that the maximum recovery for a wrongful death claim under the Act is $100,000, regardless of whether there is more than one wrongful death beneficiary. Id.
The majority reads Kyle and Cooksey to bar the award of more than $100,000 under the Act for the death of one person, regardless of the number of distinct causes of action made, e.g., wrongful death, survival, and bystander, etc. I do not believe that those cases should be so broadly read. I recognize that wrongful death actions are derivative of the decedent’s rights. See Russell v. Ingersoll-Rand Co., 841 S.W.2d 343, 345-47 (Tex.1992). I also recognize that, as the majority points out, the court in Cooksey concluded that the “per person” language in the Tort Claims Act refers to the person injured, not to the persons who suffer loss as a result of injury to someone else. Nevertheless, the supreme court only made the statement regarding derivative injuries in the context of rejecting the attempt of multiple wrongful death claimants to recover $100,000 apiece under one wrongful death action. It does not necessarily follow that any and all wrongful death beneficiaries, because they have suffered derivative injuries, cannot be considered a “person injured” under the Act. If that were the case, the supreme court would not have allowed the wrongful death beneficiaries to recover anything for their derivative injuries in Kyle and Cooksey. As such, regardless of whether the harm suffered'by the wrongful death beneficiaries is labeled an “injury,” a “derivative injury,” or “a loss as a result of an injury to someone else,” one thing is clear: Kyle and Cooksey allow wrongful death claimants a combined total recovery of up to $100,000 as “persons injured” under the Act.
Applied here, Kyle and Cooksey simply prevent each one of Gonzales’ seven wrongful death beneficiaries from claiming $100,000 each. Those beneficiaries, however, did not seek or receive $100,000 apiece. Instead, *770they received $100,000 total for the entire wrongful death claim. Thus, that result is entirely consistent with the supreme court’s holdings in Kyle and Cooksey.4
Can the Awards for the Two Different Injuries Stand Together?
If this case consisted solely of the survival claim, Gonzales’ estate would be entitled to $100,000. Likewise, if this case consisted solely of the wrongful death claim, the children would be entitled to $100,000. Consequently, the question is whether both awards can be sustained together in the same case. Two courts of appeals faced with situations similar to this have allowed recovery under the Act in excess of $100,000 for a “single physical injury.” See City of Denton v. Van Page, 683 S.W.2d 180, 205-06 (Tex.App.— Fort Worth 1985), rev’d on other grounds, 701 S.W.2d 831 (Tex.1986) (award exceeding $100,000 upheld where husband was physically injured and wife suffered mental anguish, loss of consortium, and loss of services); City of Austin v. Davis, 693 S.W.2d 31, 34 (Tex.App.— Austin 1985, writ ref'd n.r.e.) (decedent’s statutory beneficiaries, exeluding father, received $93,000 on wrongful death claim and father was allowed to recover up to $100,000 on his separate bystander claim). In both cases, the government was negligent, causing physical injuries to one party and derivative-type injuries to a family member. In both cases, the courts allowed the physically injured and the family member to recover for the injuries they each suffered. Van Page, 683 S.W.2d at 205-206; Davis, 693 S.W.2d at 34.
The majority declines to follow Van Page and Davis, concluding those cases cannot be reconciled with Cooksey. I disagree with that conclusion. As outlined above, Cooksey addresses considerations pertinent only when multiple claimants in a wrongful death action seek $100,000 apiece. Contrary to the majority’s position, Cooksey in no way addresses the situation present in Van Page, Davis, and here: different claims for different injuries to different parties. I also disagree with the analysis of our sister court in Texas Department of Transportation v. Ramming, 861 S.W.2d 460 (Tex.App.—Houston [14th Dist.], 1993, n.w.h.) (not yet reported).
Additionally, the majority’s interpretation of the law would abolish or amend statutorially mandated causes of action. Such a result is contrary to the laws of statutory construction that requires our statutes should be read in a manner which gives meaning to each statute. J. & J. Beverage Co. v. Texas Alcoholic Beverage Comm’n, 810 S.W.2d 859, 860 (Tex.App.—Dallas 1991, no writ). Wherever possible, they should be interpreted in harmony with one another. Valdez v. Texas Childrens Hosp., 673 S.W.2d 342, 344 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1984, no writ). Under the majority’s rule, either Gonzales’ survival claim or her statutory beneficiaries’ wrongful death claim was abolished completely, or each statutory cause of action was arbitrarily limited to $50,000.
We can presume that both the survival statute and the wrongful death statute were exacted by the legislature with complete knowledge of the Tort Claims Act and with reference to it. Acker v. Texas Water Comm’n, 790 S.W.2d 299, 301 (Tex.1990). Since we are mandated to apply statutes in a manner that assures harmony, I respectfully assert that the majority’s application is contrary to the law of statutory construction. La Sara Grain Co. v. First Nat’l Bank of Mercedes, 673 S.W.2d 558, 565 (Tex.1984).
In light of these considerations, and the legislative directive to liberally construe the Tort Claims Act in favor of the claimant, see Davis, 693 S.W.2d at 34; Jenkins v. State, 570 S.W.2d 175, 178 (Tex.Civ.App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1978, no writ), I would hold that both Gonzales and her wrongful death beneficiaries were “persons injured” under the Act. As such, appellees would be entitled to recover the $200,000 award for damages: $100,000 for the survival claim and $100,000 for the wrongful death claim.

. The majority does not explicitly state how they would apportion the $100,000 award. Their conclusion, however, that the "per person” language in the Act refers to the person physically injured, not to the persons who suffer a loss as a result of that injury, seems to indicate the $100,-000 would go to the survival claim, as that claim is for Gonzales’ injuries. Moreover, the award of *768any money on the wrongful death claim, since it is designed to compensate the children for their injuries, would be an implicit finding that they were "persons injured” under the Act, a result contrary to the majority’s position.

. § 71.021. Survival Cause of Action
(a) A cause of action for personal injury to the health, reputation, or person of an injured person does not abate because of the death of the injured person or because of the death of a person liable for the injury.
(b) A personal injury action survives to and in favor of the heirs, legal representatives, and estate of the injured person. The action survives against the liable person and the person’s legal representatives.
(c)The suit may be instituted and prosecuted as if the liable person were alive.

. § 71.002. Cause of Action
(a) An action for actual damages arising from an injury that causes an individual’s death may be brought if liability exists under this section
(b) A person is liable for damages arising from an injury that causes an individual’s death if the injury was caused by the person’s or his agent's or servant’s wrongful act, neglect, carelessness, unskillfulness, or default.
Tex.Civ.Prac. Si Rem.Code Ann. § 71.002(a) and (b) (Vernon 1986).

. For the same reasons, it is also consistent with Henris County v. White, 823 S.W.2d 385 (Tex. App. — Texarkana 1992, no writ) (court rejects wrongful death beneficiaries' attempt to recover $100,000 per wrongful death claimant).