Kaufman v. Miller

• Decision Date: 19 April 1967
• Docket Number: No. A--11730,A--11730
• Citation: 414 S.W.2d 164
• Parties: Shirley A. KAUFMAN, Petitioner, v. Louis S. MILLER, Respondent.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

Page 164

414 S.W.2d 164

Shirley A. KAUFMAN, Petitioner, v. Louis S. MILLER, Respondent.

No. A--11730.

Supreme Court of Texas.

April 19, 1967.

John H. Benckenstein, Beaumont, for petitioner.

John T. Lindsey, Port Arthur, Payton R. Covington, Lake Charles, La., for respondent.

CALVERT, Chief Justice.

This is a suit for damages for personal injuries brought by Louis S. Miller, who will be referred to in this opinion as plaintiff, against Shirley Kaufman, to be referred to as defendant. The suit grew out of a motor vehicle collision on July 15, 1961. The case was submitted to a jury on a number of special issues. Based on the jury's verdict, the trial court rendered judgment awarding the plaintiff a recovery of $25,000. The court of civil appeals affirmed. 405 S.W.2d 820. We reverse the judgment of the courts below and here render judgment that the plaintiff take nothing.

Defendant argues under her first point of error that as a matter of law the evidence will not support the jury findings that her negligent acts or omissions were proximate causes of the plaintiff's injuries. In evaluating this argument, it should be stated at the outset that the evidence establishes conclusively that there was no physical impact with the plaintiff's body in the collision and that the only injury suffered by him was an injury to his nervous system, diagnosed by his psychiatrist-witness as a 'conversion reaction' and 'compensation neurosis.' A summary of the relevant evidence, viewed most favorably in support of the verdict, is necessary to put the question of proximate cause in proper perspective.

Between the hours of 2:30 and 3:00 o'clock, p.m., July 15, 1961, plaintiff was driving through Beaumont, Texas on IH--10, a four-lane divided highway with two lanes for traffic moving westerly and two lanes for traffic moving easterly. Plaintiff was traveling in the south lane of eastbound traffic, returning to Louisiana from Texas City, Texas. He was driving an International 220 truck with an empty tank-trailer which was used to transport gasoline or chemicals. The truck-trailer had an overall length of approximately fifty feet, and it weighed 72,000 pounds when the tank-trailer was full and 25,000 pounds when the tank-trailer was empty.

Pine Street in Beaumont enters IH--10 from the south at a 40 angle, some ten feet west of the west end of a bridge over the Neches River. Plaintiff's truck was passing the Pine Street entrance when the defendant sought to enter the highway and drove her Plymouth automobile against the rear wheel of the trailer. The force of the collision threw the defendant's automobile against the bridge railing. The damage to the automobile was insubstantial and no damage was done to the truck. Both vehicles later left the scene of the collision under their own power, and both drivers proceeded to their respective destinations in Louisiana.

Defendant had her mother and her aunt as passengers in her car. Plaintiff saw the car approaching on Pine Street but did not see it as it entered the highway. He did not know it had collided with his trailer. He 'heard a little crash' which required him to use some effort to keep the truck under control, but he thought he had hit the curb of the bridge. He looked in his rear view mirror and saw the car against the bridge railing and then knew 'that I had either hit her or she hit me.' He stopped his truck some 150 feet from the place of collision and walked back to investigate.

When plaintiff reached the car, he found the three women. He was nervous. Defendant was nervous, excited and 'shook up,' but no one appeared to have been injured. Plaintiff discovered that his truck and trailer were undamaged, and he told the defendant he was not hurt. He testified, however, that he got 'shocked' and 'shook up at the accident.' In his testimony he accounted for his shock thusly: 'I didn't even know that I had hit her, for one thing, and that's what shook me up--or she hit me. When I went over there she told me that I had run into her and that's what got me all shook up, then, and shocked.' He sent in an accident report to his employer in which he stated that he had received no injuries in the collision.

'Right after' the collision, the plaintiff began to have spells of nervousness and dizziness and blackout spells. He would have dizzy spells when he got nervous, and he would get nervous became he 'was scared somebody would run into' him and was afraid he 'might hurt somebody.' His dizzy spells did not get 'real bad' until about the time he went to see a doctor in May, 1962, some ten months after the collision. By that time, he was having nightmares and spells of nausea. His doctor would not let him go back to driving a truck. He consulted several doctors and was hospitalized for a week. From May, 1962 until the time of the trial in April, 1965, plaintiff had worked at various jobs at a considerable loss of earnings. His dizzy spells were less frequent at the time of trial.

Plaintiff is a son of farmer parents who separated when he was fourteen years old. He received an eighth grade education. He remained on the farm with his father until he was seventeen, at which time he went into the military service where he remained for six years. While in the army, he was a heavy truck driver, and, with study, achieved the equivalent of a tenth grade education. He left the military service in 1955, went to a mechanic's school for one year and then got a job driving a truck. He worked for various employers in different kinds of employment before he secured work as a truck driver with Herring Tank Lines for whom he was working at the time of the collision on July 15, 1961. He was 31 years of age at the time of trial. He could remember having had only one dizzy spell before the collision and that was on an occasion when he was doing off-shore work and 'the heat hit' him.

The plaintiff had been in other accidents prior to the collision, only one of which needs to be noticed. In May, 1959 he had a serious accident. He hit a hole in the highway and broke the left front frame on his truck, causing the truck to jack-knife and turn over and catch fire at a trailer camp. One trailer house burned down and three occupants of it died in the fire. Two or three other trailer houses and a nearby residence and garage burned down. The plaintiff admitted that the accident was a 'horrible' one, he suffered a severe shock from it, and he would always remember it; but he testified he recovered from that shock and it had no effect on him during the two years proceding the collision on July 15, 1961.

The testimony of the plaintiff has been set out in considerable detail because it also summarizes the history related by him to his psychiatrist and forms the basis for the opinion of the psychiatrist that plaintiff is suffering from a 'conversion reaction' and 'compensation neurosis' which were 'triggered' by the collision of July 15, 1961.

The psychiatrist spent one hour with the plaintiff. His testimony will be summarized. The plaintiff is a 'passive dependent personality' and 'has two significant neurotic patterns, one of depression and the other conversion reaction.' His neurosis 'had its beginning on the farm' in 'a hard, dreary existence,' and the depressive part of the neurosis 'was caused by this accident in 1959' when he could have been killed and 'realized at the time of the accident that he was facing death.' The witness testified that the 1959 accident left the plaintiff with a feeling of guilt and that the 'horrible accident' would be with him 'until the day he dies.' It was the professional opinion of the witness that the plaintiff's condition was such that he was disabled from driving a truck; and it was his positive opinion that the accident of July 15, 1961 'triggered off' the conversion reaction and that the conversion reaction neurosis was the disabling factor.

The psychiatrist-witness explained the various technical terms and neuroses referred to in his testimony and the effect of the neuroses on the behavior of a person, and particularly on the behavior of the plaintiff.

A 'passive dependent personality' is 'characterized by helplessness, indecisiveness, and a tendency to cling to others * * * These individuals must, at all costs, conceal their energy and aggressive impulses from their own consciousness. * * * These are nice, quiet, gentle people, who would never hurt a fly. For such a person hurting a fly, without intending, and without any way of not inflicting the damage or hurting, is a frightening experience.' It was his opinion that a person with a 'passive dependent personality would be more susceptible to developing conversion reaction.'

The 'depressive reaction' neurosis of the plaintiff was related to the accident in 1959. 'The effect was that it left him with the realization that he could hurt people'; and 'the danger for a person of this personality type is (from fear of) hurting someone else, and not (from fear of) being hurt himself.' The 'conversion reaction' neurosis was 'triggered off' by the accident of July 15, 1961, the essential quality of which 'was the complete absence of awareness that it was happening, and, therefore, the inability to make any attempt to prevent it from happening.' It was 'the experience of the danger of this massive vehicle which could kill, and which could cause damage, without knowing about it * * * that * * * triggered the conversion reaction in the man.' The spells of nervousness, dizziness and blackout spells were symptomatic of the conversion reaction neurosis; the dizziness and fainting 'in this man serve to prevent overwhelming anxiety.'

A 'compensation neurosis,' according to the witness, is 'a condition in which the individual seeks relief from inner conflict through some form of external compensation. * * * This is not to be confused with malingering in which the individual deliberately contrives to imitate an illness for the...