Levinge Corp. v. Ledezma

752 S.W.2d 641, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 1186, 1988 WL 52170
CourtCourt of Appeals of Texas
DecidedMay 26, 1988
Docket01-87-00284-CV
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 752 S.W.2d 641 (Levinge Corp. v. Ledezma) 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
Levinge Corp. v. Ledezma, 752 S.W.2d 641, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 1186, 1988 WL 52170 (Tex. Ct. App. 1988).

Opinions

OPINION

JACK SMITH, Justice.

This is an appeal from a judgment awarding damages based on negligence under the Texas Survival Statute and Wrongful Death Act. After a non-jury trial, the court awarded damages for the death of Enrique Ledezma to his mother, father, the executrix of the deceased’s estate, and the intervenor. The appellants limit their appeal to the award of $1,248,022 in damages.

The decedent was fatally injured on March 5, 1984 while working as a construction laborer. Appellant Hilliard was the driver of a truck leased by appellant Lev-inge that was used to deliver framed wood walls to a condominium construction site in Houston, Texas. Enrique, a 27-year-old Mexican national, and his co-worker, Weston Blair, had unloaded the flat bed truck at two different locations at the construction site. They were riding on the back of the truck to the third unloading location when Blair saw Hilliard grin through the truck’s side view mirror, and then felt the truck suddenly accelerate. Blair, Enrique, and several of the walls fell off the truck. Forty minutes later, Enrique was pronounced dead of a fractured skull.

[643]*643In point of error number one, the appellants assert that the court’s finding that the decedent would have contributed $215,-000 to his mother during her lifetime is so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly unjust. Appellants single out findings of fact and conclusions of law numbers 64, 65, 66, and 69. In findings 64, 65, and 66, the court found that Enrique had been the primary contributor to his family by his regular contributions to his mother and had expressed intentions to continue supporting the family. In finding number 69, the court found that, “[b]ased upon testimony and evidence of past earnings, future wage earning capacity and past pattern of contributions, the deceased would have contributed at least Two Hundred Fifteen Thousand and No/100 Dollars ($215,000.00) to his Mother during her lifetime.”

Appellants attack the testimony of appel-lees’ expert witness, Thomas R. DeGregori, a professor of economics at the University of Houston, who calculated a 15-year income stream for Enrique, which multiplied by 45% equals approximately $215,000. Appellants claim this finding has no legal or factual support in the evidence.

In determining the legal support of a finding, this Court must consider only the evidence and inferences that tend to support the finding, disregarding all evidence and inferences to the contrary. King v. Bauer, 688 S.W.2d 845, 846 (Tex.1985); Garza v. Alviar, 395 S.W.2d 821, 823 (Tex.1965). The finding is upheld if there is any evidence of probative force to support it. In re King’s Estate, 150 Tex. 662, 665, 244 S.W.2d 660, 661 (1951).

In reviewing questions of factual sufficiency, this Court must consider and weigh all the evidence, both that in support of and contrary to the challenged finding. The finding must be upheld unless it is found that the evidence is so weak or the finding is so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be manifestly erroneous or unjust. Id.; M.J. Sheridan & Son Co. v. Seminole Pipeline Co., 731 S.W.2d 620, 623 (Tex.App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1987, no writ).

When ruling on legal and factual insufficiency of the evidence questions, the legal sufficiency issue should be addressed first. The record reflects that at the age of seven, Enrique began working to help support his family. He always gave a part or all of his earnings from his various jobs to his mother. When he worked for a fruit store, he brought home fruit. When he was 13 years old, he helped at a bakery and brought home bread for the family. As a houseboy at age 15, he gave his entire salary to his mother and on occasion, a roasted chicken. When he was working a beer delivery route, he was able to give his mother 20 to 25 pesos a week. At age 18, he sold snack foods to restaurants and bars on commission. This allowed him to contribute 2,000 pesos a week to his mother and to bring home groceries. From the United States, Enrique sent his mother $300 from his monthly earnings of $640, or about 45% of his income.

Enrique continued to go to school in addition to working. By the time he arrived in the United States in 1983, he was almost ready to graduate from a Mexican university with a degree that would allow him to get a white-collar job in Mexico. He came to the United States to earn $800 he needed to pay to take his last exams and to purchase a graduation ring.

Appellees’ expert witness, DeGregori, an economics professor at the University of Houston, testified that with Enrique’s educational level, he would be among the upper 20% of income earners in Mexico. De-Gregori then took 5.77% of Mexico’s 1977 gross national product and attributed that as the contribution of the upper 20% of Mexico’s wage earners to the GNP. He then calculated a per capita amount and converted that into U.S. dollars at the “real exchange rate.” The “real exchange rate” was obtained from a World Bank study called Purchasing Power Parity, which reflects what an income would buy in different countries. Through his calculations, Degregori computed the per capita loss of income for a worker in the upper 20% of Mexico’s wage earners to be $10,979 at the “real exchange rate”. Using this, he tabu[644]*644lated the loss of income stream for the 31.35 years that he estimated Enrique would have worked had he lived.

DeGregori provided data that showed the life expectancy of a female in Mexico to be 69 years. Enrique’s mother testified that her age at the time of trial was 55 years of age. From the income stream, the amount of lost income at the “real exchange rate” for 15 years was $494,070. 45% of this figure is $222,331.50, which is approximately the equivalent to the $215,000 awarded in issue number 69.

The above evidence is of sufficient probative force to support findings 64, 65, 66, and 69. Appellants’ legal sufficiency complaint cannot be sustained.

In reviewing appellants’ factual sufficiency claim, the evidence in support of the challenged finding is the same as for the legal sufficiency point. A review of the record for evidence contrary to the finding shows that in Mexico, there are no statistics published as to salaries of white-collar workers. Therefore, DeGregori relied on data compiled and published by international researchers about the economy of Mexico in general and extrapolated down from this to calculate the income stream of a single white-collar worker. DeGregori made the assumption that Enrique would belong to the group of workers comprising the top 20% of all income earners in Mexico. To arrive at the per capita income stream, DeGregori also had to make assumptions concerning the average family unit size of upper income Mexican households, future salary levels of a Mexican worker with a comparable degree, and future inflation and interest rates in the Mexican economy.

DeGregori acknowledged that he did not speak Spanish, had never lived in Mexico, was not an expert in the Mexican economy, and that he was relying on information from international publications and on information given him by a friend of his, Professor Dilmas James, who did not testify-

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Levinge Corp. v. Ledezma
752 S.W.2d 641 (Court of Appeals of Texas, 1988)

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Bluebook (online)
752 S.W.2d 641, 1988 Tex. App. LEXIS 1186, 1988 WL 52170, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/levinge-corp-v-ledezma-texapp-1988.