Debra Smith v. James East, Individually and D/B/A Avery Fine Wines & Spirits And Terri Bayless East, Individually and D/B/A Avery Fine Wines & Spirits

411 S.W.3d 519, 2013 WL 692456, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 1753
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedFebruary 22, 2013
Docket03-11-00800-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 411 S.W.3d 519 (Debra Smith v. James East, Individually and D/B/A Avery Fine Wines & Spirits And Terri Bayless East, Individually and D/B/A Avery Fine Wines & Spirits) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Texas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Debra Smith v. James East, Individually and D/B/A Avery Fine Wines & Spirits And Terri Bayless East, Individually and D/B/A Avery Fine Wines & Spirits, 411 S.W.3d 519, 2013 WL 692456, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 1753 (Tex. Ct. App. 2013).

Opinion

OPINION

BOB PEMBERTON, Justice.

Debra Smith appeals a take-nothing judgment in a wrongful-death action arising from the death of her daughter, S.S. The principal issue presented is whether Smith can recover on jury findings apportioning a combined total of more than 50% of responsibility for S.S.’s death to Smith and to S.S. herself, but less than 50% of responsibility to either of them individually. Concluding that Texas law bars Smith from recovering, and that Smith has not otherwise demonstrated reversible error, we will affirm the district court’s judgment.

BACKGROUND

S.S. died from self-inflicted acute alcohol poisoning at seventeen years of age. She lived with Smith, her natural mother. S.S. imbibed the lethal volume of alcohol during the afternoon of Tuesday, February 10, 2009, while “partying” with friends, and Smith found her afterward lying on a couch in the apartment they shared, unresponsive, when Smith returned home from work in the early evening. Efforts to revive S.S. proved unsuccessful.

Smith would later allege that S.S. obtained the fatal alcohol from a business known as Avery Fine Wine & Spirits, which is co-owned by appellees, James East and Terri Bayless East. Smith sued the Easts for damages both individually as a wrongful-death beneficiary 1 and as representative of S.S.’s estate. 2 Smith’s basic factual theory was that S.S. had gone to Avery and succeeded in obtaining alcohol *522 from James East on numerous occasions beginning when she was as young as sixteen years of age, that such access to alcohol had caused what was admittedly a troubled teen to spiral further downward into alcoholism, and that James had ultimately given her the alcohol that killed her. Smith further alleged that James had been acting in the course and scope of his employment with Avery, such that Terri East was vicariously liable for his actions. Smith pled liability theories of common-law negligence as well as negligence per se founded on alleged violations of statutes prohibiting the provision of alcohol to a minor or to a “habitual drunkard.” 3 She further alleged that the Easts had acted with gross negligence, entitling her to recover punitive damages. The Easts denied that James had provided S.S. alcohol, and pled that S.S.’s death had instead been proximately caused by the contributory negligence of Smith and/or 5.5. herself.

The claims were tried to a jury, which heard evidence over the course of five days. The district court granted the Easts a directed verdict as to Smith’s survival claims and a directed verdict to Smith that James had been acting within the course and scope of his employment with Avery. It submitted to the jury, without objection from either side, a broad-form question inquiring whether the negligence of James, S.S., or Smith had proximately caused 5.5.’s death. There was no dispute that the case was governed by chapter 83 of the civil practice and remedies code — Texas’s proportionate responsibility scheme 4 — so the district court next submitted a question, predicated on affirmative negligence findings, asking the jury to determine the percentage of the negligence causing S.S.’s death that was attributable to (as applicable) James, Smith, or S.S. See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem.Code Ann. § 33.003 (West 2008). The court additionally submitted the amount of Smith’s damages and a punitive-damages predicate question inquiring as to whether the harm to S.S. had been caused by James’s gross negligence. The jury found that the negligence of James, Smith, and S.S. had each proximately caused S.S.’s death; apportioned responsibility 35% to James, 25% to S.S., and 40% to Smith; awarded Smith $646,269.00 in damages; and failed to find that James had acted with gross negligence.

Both sides filed motions for judgment on the verdict, but advanced divergent views as to the legal effect of the jury’s findings. Smith urged that the findings entitled her to a judgment awarding her $241,639.21, an amount roughly equaling 35% of the damages the jury awarded her — corresponding to James’s percentage of responsibility — plus prejudgment interest on that amount. See id. § 33.013(a) (West 2008) (“[A] liable defendant is liable to a claimant only for the percentage of the damages found by the trier of fact equal to that defendant’s percentage of responsibility with respect to the ... death ... for which the damages are allowed.”). The Easts, in contrast, argued that chapter 33 barred recovery for Smith altogether because (1) section 33.001 prohibits “a claimant” from recovering damages “if his percentage of responsibility is greater than 50 percent,” id. § 33.001 (West 2008), and (2) section *523 33.011(1) defines “claimant” for purposes of that chapter in a manner that makes a wrongful-death plaintiff and the decedent through whom she claims a single “claimant.” See id. § 33.011(1) (West 2008). Consequently, the Easts reasoned,' the district court was required to render a take-nothing judgment on Smith’s claims. 5 Following a hearing on the competing motions, the district court rendered a final judgment incorporating the jury’s verdict in full and ordering that Smith take nothing on her claims, a disposition that the parties agree necessarily rested upon the legal conclusion, advanced by the Easts, that Smith and S.S. were a single “claimant” for purposes of section 33.001.

Thereafter, Smith timely filed a motion for new trial. In her motion, Smith reurged her arguments regarding chapter 33’s application to the jury’s findings but also asserted that the jury’s negligence findings against her and S.S. were against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence. Smith also complained of evi-dentiary rulings that included the admission of photographs of S.S. that Smith regarded as “provocative.” The district court overruled the motion by written order. This appeal ensued.

ANALYSIS

Chapter 33

In her first and primary issue, Smith challenges the district court’s construction of chapter 33, urging that she and S.S. are properly considered to be separate “claimants” for purposes of determining the amount that statute permits her to recover based on the jury’s findings. Consequently, Smith argues, section 33.001 does not bar her recovery because the jury apportioned only 40% of the negligence to her individually, and only 25% to S.S. Instead, Smith reasons, she may recover 35% of the damages awarded by the jury, corresponding to the-percentage of negligence it apportioned to James.

Statutory construction presents a question of law that we review de novo. See State v. Shumake, 199 S.W.3d 279, 284 (Tex.2006). Our primary objective in statutory construction is to give effect to the legislature’s intent. See id. We seek that intent “first and foremost” in the statutory text. Lexington Ins. Co. v. Strayhom, 209 S.W.3d 83, 85 (Tex.2006).

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411 S.W.3d 519, 2013 WL 692456, 2013 Tex. App. LEXIS 1753, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/debra-smith-v-james-east-individually-and-dba-avery-fine-wines-texapp-2013.