In re United Scaffolding, Inc.

Decision Date31 August 2012
Docket NumberNo. 10–0526.,10–0526.
Citation377 S.W.3d 685,55 Tex. Sup. Ct. J. 1313
PartiesIn re UNITED SCAFFOLDING, INC., Relator.
CourtTexas Supreme Court

377 S.W.3d 685
55 Tex.
Sup. Ct. J. 1313

In re UNITED SCAFFOLDING, INC., Relator.

No. 10–0526.

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued Oct. 6, 2011.
Decided Aug. 31, 2012.


[377 S.W.3d 686]


Mike A. Hatchell, Locke Lord LLP, Austin, TX, for Amicus Curiae E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company.

Christopher Michael Portner, J. Trenton Bond, Portner Bond PLLC, Dominic M.V. Braus, Ferguson Firm, Timothy W. Ferguson, Ferguson Firm, Beaumont, TX, for Real Party in Interest James Levine.


Kathleen Marie Kennedy, Mehaffy Weber PC, Beaumont, TX, for Relator United Scaffolding, Inc.

Justice LEHRMANN delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice JEFFERSON, Justice HECHT, Justice MEDINA, Justice GREEN, Justice JOHNSON, Justice WILLETT, and Justice GUZMAN joined.

In In re Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas, we held that a trial court's order granting a motion for new trial must provide a reasonably specific explanation of the court's reasons for setting aside a jury verdict. 290 S.W.3d 204, 213 (Tex.2009). We rejected a new-trial grant that was premised solely “in the interest of justice.” Id. at 213. Because the trial court's order in this case can be read to do just that, we conditionally grant the writ of mandamus. We also deny United's request for a writ of mandamus compelling the trial court to render judgment on the verdict.

I. Background

In James Levine's 2008 negligence lawsuit against United Scaffolding, a jury assigned fifty-one percent responsibility for Levine's injuries to United. The jury declined to find past damages, even though it awarded $178,000 in projected future medical expenses. Following this verdict, the trial court granted Levine's motion for new trial “in the interest of justice and fairness.” In light of In re Columbia, we conditionally granted United's writ of mandamus in January 2010. In re United Scaffolding, Inc., 301 S.W.3d 661, 663 (Tex.2010) (“We direct the trial court to specify its reasons for disregarding the jury verdict and ordering a new trial.”).

The trial court amended its order to add three alternative rationales:

[377 S.W.3d 687]

After re-considering Plaintiff James and Lisa Levine's Motion for New Trial, the Court GRANTS the motion and orders New Trial based upon:

A. The jury's answer to question number three 1 (3) is against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence; and/or

B. The great weight and preponderance of the evidence supports a finding that the determined negligence of Defendant was a proximate cause of injury in the past to Plaintiff, James Levine; and/or

C. The great weight and preponderance of the evidence supports a finding that the determined negligence of Defendant supports an award of past damages; and/or

D. In the interest of justice and fairness.

(Emphasis added). United again sought mandamus relief, but the court of appeals found the order reasonably specific and denied the petition, with one justice dissenting. 315 S.W.3d at 247.

United argues that the amended order still fails to provide adequate reasoning. In addition to attacking the order's use of “and/or” and the retention of “in the interest of justice,” United (supported by amicus curiae E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co.) urges that we require trial courts to conduct, in new-trial orders based on factual sufficiency, the same detailed analysis we required of appellate courts in Pool v. Ford Motor Co., 715 S.W.2d 629, 635 (Tex.1986). United also invites us to review the evidence and conclude that the trial court abused its discretion in granting a new trial on factual insufficiency grounds. We should, United contends, order the trial court to render judgment on the verdict. Levine counters that requiring reasoning any more specific than that used here would waste trial court resources, and that substantive review of these types of orders would be improper.

II. New–Trial Order Requirements

In In re Columbia, we reiterated the considerable discretion afforded trial judges in ordering new trials. 290 S.W.3d at 212 (citing Johnson v. Fourth Court of Appeals, 700 S.W.2d 916, 917 (Tex.1985)). That rule has both jurisprudential justifications (trial judges actually attend the trial and are best suited to evaluate its deficiencies), and practical justifications (most trial judges are understandably reluctant, after presiding over a full trial, to do it all over again). Therefore, in considering how detailed a trial court's new-trial order must be, as well as what level of review it is subject to, we must both afford jury verdicts appropriate regard and respect trial courts' significant discretion in these matters.

Imposing a Pool-like standard on trial courts would weigh too heavily against trial courts' discretion, since that standard would frequently be impossible for a trial court to meet. In Pool, we said:

In order that this court may in the future determine if a correct standard of review of factual insufficiency points has been utilized, courts of appeals, when reversing on insufficiency grounds, should, in their opinions, detail the evidence relevant to the issue in consideration and clearly state why the jury's finding is factually insufficient or is so

[377 S.W.3d 688]

against the great weight and preponderance as to be manifestly unjust; why it shocks the conscience; or clearly demonstrates bias. Further, those courts, in their opinions, should state in what regard the contrary evidence greatly outweighs the evidence in support of the verdict.

715 S.W.2d at 635. We cited that standard in In re Columbia, and United and DuPont make much of our comparisons of a trial court's new-trial review with the type of review conducted by appellate courts. See, e.g.,290 S.W.3d at 211–12 (“[T]here is no meaningful difference to the parties between an appellate court reversing a judgment based on a jury verdict and a trial court setting the verdict aside....”). But in that same opinion, we also observed that appellate courts normally have a court reporter's record at their disposal, while trial courts must rely on their own observations.2Id. at 211. This distinction advocates both for giving substantial deference to the trial court's new-trial determinations (since the trial judge may have observed irregularities not wholly apparent in a cold record), and for not requiring Pool-level detail (since a trial judge usually does not have a record from which to draw detailed recitations of the evidence presented).


Moreover, a large part of our rationale for prescribing Pool review for courts of appeals—concern that, “without that mental process being reflected by the opinion,” we could not be sure that a court of appeals had “considered and weighed all the evidence before arriving at a decision of insufficiency,” Pool, 715 S.W.2d at 635—is less potent as to trial courts. Unlike a court of appeals, which must affirmatively choose to read and consider the entire record (or selectively ignore portions of it, as we feared in Pool ), a trial judge who rules on a motion for new trial has, in most instances, been present and a participant in the entire trial. We conclude that the Pool standards are not appropriate for trial court orders granting motions for new trial.

Consistent with these concerns, we focused in In re Columbia not on the length or detail of the reasons a trial court gives, but on how well those reasons serve the general purpose of assuring the parties that the jury's decision was set aside only after careful thought and for valid reasons. 290 S.W.3d at 213. Indeed, our opinion expressly touched on the substance of a trial court's reason only in explaining what that reason could not be: to substitute the trial court's judgment for that of the jury. Id. at 212 (citing Scott v. Monsanto Co., 868 F.2d 786, 791 (5th Cir.1989)). A trial court need not provide a detailed catalog of the evidence to ensure that, however subject to differences of opinion its reasoning may be, it was not a mere substitution of the trial court's judgment for the jury's. That purpose will be satisfied so long as the order provides a cogent and reasonably specific explanation of the reasoning that led the court to conclude that a new trial was warranted. Furthermore, in most cases a new trial will be granted for reasons stated in a motion for new trial, so that such an explanation will alert the parties to the reason the judge found persuasive, further illuminating the substantive basis for the order.

In light of these considerations, we hold that a trial court does not abuse its discretion so long as its stated reason for granting a new trial (1) is a reason for

[377 S.W.3d 689]

which a new trial is legally appropriate (such as a well-defined legal standard or a defect that probably resulted in an improper verdict); and (2) is specific enough to indicate that the trial court did not simply parrot a pro forma template, but rather derived the articulated reasons from the particular facts and circumstances of the case at hand.

For example, an order granting a new trial may amount to a clear abuse of discretion if the given reason, specific or not, is not one for which a new trial is legally valid. See id. at 210 n. 3 (“The good cause for which [Texas Rule of Civil Procedure] 320 allows trial courts to grant new trials does not mean just any cause.”). Or, mandamus would lie if the articulated reasons plainly state that the trial court merely substituted its own judgment for the jury's, see id. at 210; or that the trial court simply disliked one party's lawyer, In re BMW, 8 S.W.3d 326, 328 (Tex.2000) (Hecht, J., dissenting from the denial of rehearing of a petition for mandamus); or that the reason is based on invidious...

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