AUSTIN - The Supreme Court of Texas recently wiped a $12 million dollar jury award in a lawsuit over a collision with a tractor-trailer, finding that counsel for the plaintiffs crossed a line with “an uninvited accusation of discriminatory animus.”
According to the high court’s May 10 opinion, Christine John and Christopher Lewis were injured in a rear-end collision involving a tractor-trailer driven by Roberto Alonzo. They sued Alonzo and his employer, New Prime, seeking noneconomic and exemplary damages.
Alonzo and New Prime conceded liability, leaving damages as the only issue at trial. The jury awarded $12 million to John and $450,000 to Lewis for physical pain and mental anguish, but no exemplary damages were assessed because the jury failed to unanimously answer a predicate question. The trial court rendered judgment on the jury’s verdict.
Alonzo and New Prime sought a new trial on various grounds, including that plaintiffs’ counsel “inflamed the jury with an unprovoked accusation of race and gender bias,” the opinion states.
The motion was overruled and an appellate court affirmed. The Supreme Court, however, reversed and remanded the case for a new trial.
“Probable harm from improper jury argument is presumptively remediable by retraction or curative instruction,” the opinion states. “Incurable argument is rare, but counsel in this personal-injury case crossed that line with an uninvited accusation of discriminatory animus.”
Justices found the improper argument was incurable because it “was designed to incite passions of the jury and turn the jurors against defense counsel for doing what lawyers are ethically bound to do: advocate clients’ interests within the bounds of law.”
“Alonzo and New Prime were entitled to suggest a smaller damages amount than John sought without being accused of invidious discrimination,” the opinion states. “This inflammatory argument was uninvited and unprovoked. At no point did the defendants or their counsel indicate any prejudice against John based on her race or gender, nor did they urge the jury to award her less money because of these immutable characteristics.
“In fact, the topic of whether John’s race and gender should affect her damages award started and ended with plaintiffs’ counsel.”
Supreme Court case No. 22-0521