Court Opinion

ID: 9771577
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:47:38.835945+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:33.195239
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Justice,
dissenting.
I respectfully dissent. The court has ignored crucial parts of the record and substituted hypothetical scenarios for evidence in order to render an advisory opinion on the issue of municipal liability for exemplary damages.
This case was tried on the Pikes’ claim of mental injury and distress stemming from their inability to locate the body of Johnny Mack Pike. The Pikes alleged that the City of Gladewater was negligent in: (1) violating and desecrating the grave of Johnny Mack Pike; (2) wrongfully disinterring the body of Johnny Mack Pike; (3) placing another body in the grave of Johnny Mack Pike; and, (4) losing the body of Johnny Mack Pike. The Pikes also allege the City of Gladewater was negligent in failing to keep accurate records of which graves were occupied, selling the same gravesite to more than one person, and allowing more than one person to be buried in the same site. In its answers to the issues, the jury found the City had been negligent in failing to keep a record of the location of the infant Pike’s grave. The jury determined no other body had been placed in Johnny Mack Pike’s grave. The jury also determined the infant’s grave had not been desecrated, the body had not been removed *526or lost from the original gravesite, and the Pikes’ gravesites had not been sold to others.
To recover on a theory of negligence, a plaintiff must establish a causal connection between the negligent act or omission complained of and the injuries suffered. This causal connection cannot be established on the basis of mere conjecture or unsupported inference. Bowles v. Bourdon, 219 S.W.2d 779 (Tex.1949); Birmingham v. Gulf Oil Corp., 494 S.W.2d 946 (Tex.Civ.App.—Corpus Christi), affirmed, 516 S.W.2d 914 (Tex.1973). As a part of the requirement of a showing that the negligence of a party proximately caused an injury, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the act or omission complained of was a substantial factor in bringing about the harm, without which the harm would not have occurred. McClure v. Allied Stores of Texas, Inc., 608 S.W.2d 901 (Tex.1980).
The jury’s verdict completely fails to establish any causal link between the Pikes’ inability to locate Johnny Mack Pike’s remains and the failure of the City to keep proper records. The only act of negligence which the jury ascribed to the City was a failure to keep proper records of burials. In a misguided attempt to link the City’s failure to keep records with the inability of the Pikes to locate the child’s remains, the court has misread the record and substituted hypothetical scenarios for the facts of the case.
The record before us is devoid of any evidence which establishes the City’s failure to keep records caused the Pikes to be unable to locate Johnny Mack Pike’s remains. The record reveals the body of Johnny Mack Pike lay in an unmarked grave for over 30 years. The Pikes did not attempt to locate the child’s grave by consulting the City of Gladewater’s records. The exhumation was attempted by a private contractor who searched for the remains on the basis of the Pikes’ assertion that they knew the location of the grave. Instead of accepting the facts of this case as they are presented, the court substitutes its hypothetical scenario of the Pikes’ attempt to consult the City’s records in order to locate the gravesite.
This imaginary construct is used by the court to supply the link between the City’s failure to keep records and the Pikes’ failure to find the remains at the site they chose to search. It ignores the direct un-controverted evidence that the Pikes not only did not at anytime consult the city records to determine the location of the gravesite, rather they insisted, even in their post submission brief, that they knew at all times where Johnny Mack was buried. This specifically negates the basic premise upon which the court attempts to construct an inference of proximate cause. The court’s fiction cannot compensate for the Pikes’ failure to obtain jury findings which support a conclusion that the lack of records was a substantial factor in bringing about the injuries the Pikes complain of in their petition.
The fallacy of the court’s inference, based itself on imaginary projections of what might have happened, is even more apparent when viewed against the evidence in the case which suggests that the Pikes searched in the wrong location and that there was little chance of finding substan-i tial remains even if the proper site was located. This evidence strongly suggests that the jury would not be justified in mak-j ing an inference that the lack of city records caused the loss of the Pike child’s remains. The court’s inference of causation, based upon speculation, is manifestly! unreasonable and amounts to fact finding on the part of the court.
There is no evidence in this record which establishes that the City’s failure to keep records was a cause-in-fact of the Pikes’ inability to locate Johnny Mack Pikes remains. The transposition of hypothetical scenarios into presumed facts has no support in the record and constitutes an unwarranted deviation from proper appellate review.
For the reasons set out in this opinion, I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and render judgment for the City of Gladewater. For the same reasons, I would not reach the issue of municipal lia*527bility for exemplary damages, and do not express an opinion with regard to the court’s holding on that point.
GONZALEZ, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.