AUSTIN - On Friday, the Texas Supreme Court reversed an appellate court that affirmed an award of $15 million in non-economic damages in a wrongful death suit brought over an 18-wheeler collision, finding that “nothing in the record or in the plaintiffs’ arguments demonstrates a rational connection between the injuries suffered and the amount awarded.”
According to the high court’s opinion, the case arises from a fatal accident on an icy, unlit stretch of highway near Amarillo. An eighteen-wheeler driven by Sarah Gregory jackknifed across lanes of traffic, and the resulting pileup caused four deaths. Among those killed was Bhupinder Deol, a truck driver, but more importantly a husband, son, and father of three.
Deol’s wife and family brought a wrongful death action against Gregory and her employer, New Prime. The jury awarded approximately $16.8 million to Deol’s family. Noneconomic damages— awarded to six family members for past and future mental anguish and loss of companionship—accounted for just over $15 million of the total.
On appeal, the defendants challenged the size of the noneconomic damages award, which the court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the award was not “flagrantly outrageous, extravagant, and so excessive that it shocks the judicial conscience,” the opinion states.
“Any attempt to monetize the grief experienced by those whose loved ones die suddenly and prematurely will fail in its paltry attempt to compensate with money that which is priceless,” the opinion states. “The love we feel for those closest to us—and the pain we would feel at their passing—far exceeds any price that could ever be paid.”
The high court found that nothing in the record or in the plaintiffs’ arguments demonstrates a rational connection between the injuries suffered and the amount awarded.
“The arguments made to the jury regarding the proper amount included references to the price of fighter jets, the value of artwork, and the number of miles driven by New Prime’s trucks,” the opinion states.
“Rather than rationally connect the evidence to an amount of damages, these arguments did just the opposite by encouraging the jury to base an ostensibly compensatory award on improper considerations that have no connection to the rational compensation of Deol’s family.”
Justices also agreed with Gregory and New Prime that the trial court incorrectly excluded a responsible third party from the jury charge.
“Because a reasonable jury could have determined that another company’s truck was at least partly responsible for Deol’s death, the trial court should not have denied the defendants’ request to designate that company as a responsible third party,” the opinion states. “The judgment of the court of appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for a new trial.”
Supreme Court case No. 21-0017