After The Texas Supreme Court's Gregory Decision, Plaintiffs Must Provide Rational Connection Between Noneconomic Damages And Evidence

• Published date: 04 July 2023
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Court Procedure, Trials & Appeals & Compensation
• Law Firm: Baker Botts
• Author: Tynan Buthod, Russell Lewis, Thomas Phillips, Jessica B. Pulliam, Leslie McCombs Roussev, Zachary Stone and Macey Reasoner Stokes

Awards of noneconomic damages, such as mental anguish and pain and suffering'recently amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars in a few cases'will face greater scrutiny after The Supreme Court of Texas has stated that they "must have a rational basis grounded in the evidence." On June 16, 2023, the Court announced its judgment in Sarah Gregory and New Prime, Inc. v. Jaswinder Chohan, a wrongful death case against a trucking company and its driver. Although the Court issued three opinions, none of which garnered a majority of the justices, all six sitting justices joined in a judgment reversing the trial court's award of approximately $15 million in noneconomic damages to the widow and three children of an individual who died in a trucking accident. In reversing the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas, which had affirmed the trial court's judgment, the Court remanded the case for a new trial with limits on what plaintiffs' counsel may do to persuade the jury.

Because three justices were disqualified from participating and no more than four justices joined in any section of the lead opinion, the constitutionally required five justices did not join to deliver an opinion of the Court. Thus, the type and amount of proof required to justify a substantial award of noneconomic damages remains open for further clarification. But all the justices agreed that the justifications frequently offered to support large mental-anguish damages are improper and will constitute reversible error. And the three opinions provide important guidance for the bar on how to marshal proof to support or oppose such awards, and important guidance for the bench on how to decide if such awards should be affirmed, reversed, or remitted to a lower number. In the plurality's view, the amount of a jury's award of mental-anguish damages must be supported by "evidence of the nature, duration, and severity" of mental anguish.

Case Background and Procedural History

The lawsuit stems from a pile-up that took place on an icy stretch of Interstate 40 after Sarah Gregory jackknifed the eighteen-wheeler she was driving for New Prime. Soon thereafter, six tractor-trailers and two passenger vehicles crashed into Gregory's truck or each other, resulting in multiple fatalities.

Gregory and her employer, New Prime Inc., settled with all plaintiffs except the wife and family of Bhupinder Deol, one of the truck drivers who was killed in the collision. The jury awarded Deol's family $15.6 million in...