United States: Unsubstantiated Anchors Away! Texas Supreme Court Reverses $15 Million Non-Economic Damages Award In Wrongful Death Action

Houston, Texas (June 26, 2023) – In Sarah Gregory and New Prime, Inc. v. Jaswinder Chohan, et al., ___S.W.3d ___, No. 21-0017, 2023 Tex. LEXIS 528 (June 16, 2023), the Texas Supreme Court reversed and remanded a $15 million non-economic damages award in a wrongful death suit where there was no evidence to support the amount of the award.

Background

This case arose from a fatal multi-vehicle accident occurring on an unlit, icy stretch of highway near Amarillo, Texas when an 18-wheeler jackknifed across the highway, leading to a pileup of vehicles and other 18-wheelers, and the death of four people, including Bhunpinder Deol (Deol). Deol's family brought a wrongful death suit against the driver of the jackknifed 18-wheeler and the trucking company that employed her.

Trial and Appeal

The jury awarded $16.8 million to Deol's six family members – with over $15 million awarded for mental anguish and loss of companionship alone. The jury heard evidence supporting the existence of mental anguish and loss of companionship, but no evidence was presented to support the amount of these non-economic damages. The defendants filed an appeal challenging the size of the award. The en banc Court of Appeals for the Fifth District of Texas affirmed the jury's award, and the defendants subsequently petitioned the Texas Supreme Court for review. The Texas Supreme Court reversed the appellate court's judgment and remanded the case for a new trial because there was no evidence to support the non-economic damages awarded.

Typically, where there is no evidence to support an award, the issue would be remanded to the appellate court to consider a remittitur. Here, however, the court was also remanding the case for a new trial due to the trial court's exclusion of a responsible third party from the jury charge. As such, the court remanded the entirety of the case for a new trial.

Analysis

When deciding the matter, the Texas Supreme Court first declined to create a separate rule or to distinguish its precedent when analyzing non-economic damages in wrongful death actions as opposed to non-death injury or defamation cases. In doing so, the court explained that "no matter the source of the mental anguish or loss of companionship suffered, our precedent is clear that 'there must be . . . evidence to justify the amount awarded' in compensatory damages, just as there must be evidence to support any other relief afforded by our judicial system."

Significantly, the court condemned the use of unsubstantiated anchoring tactics deployed by the plaintiff's counsel at trial, whereby the plaintiff's counsel suggested damages amounts to the jury by referencing objects with no rational connection to the facts of the case (e.g., the cost of a fighter jet, expensive painting, or a percentage of a company's revenue). The court explained that these unsubstantiated anchoring tactics were attempts to help a jury place a monetary value on human lives, but emphasized that awards for mental anguish and loss of companionship are not meant to place a value on human life. Rather, they are meant to compensate the plaintiff for their injury.

The court was particularly critical of one unsubstantiated anchor where the plaintiff's counsel requested that the jury give the defendants their "two cents worth" for every one of the 650 million miles the defendant trucking company's trucks drove in the year preceding the accident. The court noted that such a request suggested the defendants should be punished and had nothing to do with compensation, thereby potentially improperly influencing the jury. The court further explained that the trial court should have stopped the plaintiff's counsel's use of unsubstantiated anchors sua sponte, pursuant to Tex. R. Civ. P. 269(g).

The court also rejected outright the suggestion that economic damages must be considered as a reference for non-economic damages in wrongful death cases. The court explained that the severity of mental anguish and loss of companionship suffered by surviving family members does not correlate with one's economic status. That is, such a rule would suggest a wealthier family could recover more mental anguish and loss of companionship damages than another family merely because the decedent stood to earn more during their lifetime. However, the court did not foreclose the use of economic damages as a tool when assessing non-economic damages. Instead, it noted that there could be some instances where economic damages might correlate with or inform non-economic damages, but also cautioned that they were not always connected and would not be relevant in every case.

Instead, the court pointed to the nature, duration, and severity of the anguish suffered as relevant to the amount awarded. In doing so, the court provided examples where there may be evidence of financial consequences relating to the severe emotional disruption in a plaintiff's life, or evidence showing how the money could enable a plaintiff to better cope with the grief or restore their emotional health. The court clarified that the requirement that some evidence support the damages did not require a precise quantification or a particular type of evidence. Instead, the requirement is that the amount of damages must have a rational basis grounded in the evidence.

Takeaway

The court's opinion in this case is significant in light of the of nuclear verdicts we have seen throughout Texas. It confirms that awards for non-economic damages are not punitive and are not meant to be used to place a value on human life. Instead, they are meant to compensate a plaintiff for their injury. Furthermore, to recover these damages, a plaintiff must demonstrate (1) evidence of the existence of compensable mental anguish, and (2) a rational basis grounded in the evidence to justify the amount awarded.

Ultimately, this decision will provide clearer guidelines to courts statewide and will curtail the use of unsubstantiated anchoring tactics at trial by plaintiffs' counsel. Most importantly, this ruling confirms that juries are not going to be allowed to simply "pick a number and put it in the blank" without evidence to justify the amount awarded and to demonstrate that the amount constitutes fair and reasonable compensation. While non-economic damages such as mental anguish and loss of companionship cannot be perfectly calculated, and juries are given a measure of discretion in their damages findings, that discretion is limited.

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