Court Opinion

ID: 9771576
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 16:47:38.832026+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:31:33.194193
License: Public Domain

KILGARLIN, Justice,
concurring joined by
CAMPBELL, Justice.
I concur in the judgment of the court that allows the Pikes to recover their actual damages, but not exemplary damages.
If this court is to allow exemplary damages to be assessed against municipalities, we should not create a separate rule for recovery of those damages. One consistent standard should apply to all causes in which such damages are sought. Treating municipal corporations differently from public corporations leads to a situation where we begin to create arbitrary classifications of tortfeasors.
If the concern is that exemplary damages are too easily obtained, and thus municipalities require a higher degree of protection, the solution is not to create a dual standard, but instead to re-examine Burk Royalty Co. v. Walls, 616 S.W.2d 911 (Tex.1981). I, for one, am not undisposed to revisit Burk Royalty. In theory, Burk Royalty is unassailable. It, too, spoke out against a double standard, in stating “[n]o justification exists for having a different standard for reviewing gross negligence findings in employer cases than in other type cases.” Id. at 922.
In practice, Burk Royalty has allowed gross negligence to be blended in as but a different shade or phase of ordinary negligence in an effort to fathom out the mental attitude of the defendant. I do not advocate a return to the “some care” standard of yesteryear in evaluating gross negligence. However, I am willing to explore alterations that might bring balance in this troublesome area.