Painter v. Amerimex Drilling I, Ltd.

• Decision Date: 13 April 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16–0120,16–0120
• Parties: Steven PAINTER ; Tonya Wright, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Earl A. Wright, III, Deceased; Virginia Weaver, Individually and as Next Friend of A.A.C., a Minor; and Tabitha R. Rosello, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Albert Carillo, Deceased, Petitioners, v. AMERIMEX DRILLING I, LTD., Respondent
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

561 S.W.3d 125

Steven PAINTER ; Tonya Wright, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Earl A. Wright, III, Deceased; Virginia Weaver, Individually and as Next Friend of A.A.C., a Minor; and Tabitha R. Rosello, Individually and as Representative of the Estate of Albert Carillo, Deceased, Petitioners,

v.AMERIMEX DRILLING I, LTD., Respondent

No. 16–0120

Supreme Court of Texas.

Argued December 6, 2017

OPINION DELIVERED: April 13, 2018

Rehearing Denied December 14, 2018

Peter M. Kelly, Kelly Durham & Pittard, LLP, Houston, TX, Jeffrey Blake Simon, Simon Eddins & Greenstone, Dallas, TX, for Amicus Curiae Texas Trial Lawyers Association.

Peter M. Kelly, Kelly Durham & Pittard, LLP, Houston, TX, David W. Lauritzen, Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson PC, Midland, TX, Jon Robert Hanna, Hanna Law Firm, P.C., Abilene, TX, for Petitioner Steven Painter.

Peter M. Kelly, Kelly Durham & Pittard, LLP, Houston, TX, David W. Lauritzen, Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson PC, Midland, TX, Rachel M.C. Ambler, Rahul Malhotra, The Malhotra Law Firm, Odessa, TX, for Petitioners Tabitha R. Rosello and Virginia Weaver.

S. Anthony Safi, Mounce, Green, Myers, Safi Paxson & Galatzan, P.C., Steven L. Hughes, Eighth Court of Appeals, El Paso, TX, Karen Crook Burgess, Richardson + Burgess, L.L.P., Austin TX, for Respondent Amerimex Drilling Amerimex Drilling I, Ltd.

Roger W. Hughes, Adams & Graham, L.L.P., Harlingen, TX, for Amicus Curiae Texas Association of Defense Counsel.

David W. Lauritzen, Cotton Bledsoe Tighe & Dawson PC, Midland, TX, Jon Robert Hanna, Hanna Law Firm, P.C., Abilene, TX, for Petitioner Tonya Wright.

Justice Lehrmann delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Chief Justice Hecht, Justice Johnson, Justice Guzman, Justice Boyd, and Justice Devine joined.

This negligence case arises from a motor-vehicle accident that occurred while a drilling-company employee was driving three of his coworkers from a drilling site to employer-provided housing after a shift. We must determine if genuine issues of material fact exist as to whether the driver was acting as the company's employee and within the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident, subjecting the company to vicarious liability for his alleged negligence. Although it does not dispute the existence of the employer-employee relationship, the employer asserts that it lacked control over the employee's conduct at the time of the accident, foreclosing vicarious liability as a matter of law. The trial court granted summary judgment for the employer, and the court of appeals affirmed. We hold that the employer was not entitled to summary judgment on the vicarious-liability claim. We therefore reverse the court of appeals' judgment and remand the case to the trial court.

I. Background

Sandridge Energy, Inc., hired Amerimex Drilling I, Ltd., to drill oil-and-gas wells on the Longfellow Ranch in Pecos County. Amerimex provided mobile bunkhouses for its crews and typically located those bunkhouses at the drilling site. However, Sandridge did not allow bunkhouses on the ranch, requiring them to be moved approximately 30 miles away to Fort Stockton. The Sandridge–Amerimex contract accounted for this circumstance by mandating a bonus payment to the crew's driller to drive the crew to the site.¹ Specifically, the contract provided that "[Amerimex] shall invoice [Sandridge] for and pay each Driller to receive [sic] $50/day to drive crew out to well location."² Amerimex did not require its crews to stay at the bunkhouse or ride with the driller, although it appears undisputed that they typically did both. Further, Amerimex placed no restrictions on what route they took between the bunkhouse and the drilling site or where they stopped along the way.

The Amerimex crews assigned to the Longfellow Ranch project worked twelve-hour shifts on a seven-days-on, seven-days-off schedule. J.C. Burchett was the driller on one of those crews and was paid the daily bonus to drive his crew between the bunkhouse and the ranch in his own truck. Burchett and his crew members—Steven Painter, Earl Wright, and Albert Carillo³ —all lived significantly farther from the ranch than Fort Stockton, so they generally stayed at the bunkhouse. However, on one or two occasions, Burchett drove with the crew to Big Spring (where Burchett and at least one other crew member lived) after their shift instead of back to the bunkhouse.

On February 28, 2007, Burchett was driving the crew from the ranch back to the bunkhouse after their shift ended.⁴ He struck another vehicle driven by Sarah Pena, resulting in a rollover that killed Wright and Carillo and injured Painter and Burchett. Burchett sought and received workers' compensation benefits following a contested case hearing before the Texas Department of Insurance Workers' Compensation Division. Amerimex argued in that hearing that Burchett was acting in the course and scope of his employment at the time of the accident, and the Division ultimately found Burchett's injury compensable because he was paid to transport the crew between the ranch and the bunkhouse, furthering Amerimex's business interests.

Painter and the deceased crew members' representatives and beneficiaries (collectively, Painter)⁵ did not seek workers' compensation benefits. However, Amerimex initiated proceedings at the Division to determine whether the injuries suffered by Painter, Wright, and Carillo were covered by its workers' compensation policy. A Division appeals panel concluded that Amerimex lacked standing to do so and that, in any event, the employees were not injured in the course and scope of their employment and thus did not sustain compensable injuries. In re Tex. Mut. Ins. Co. , 331 S.W.3d 70, 73 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2010, orig. proceeding). The workers'-compensation proceedings are not at issue here, nor are they determinative of the issues presented.

Painter filed suit against Burchett, Amerimex, and Sandridge, alleging Amerimex and Sandridge are vicariously liable for Burchett's negligence.⁶ The trial court granted summary judgment for Sandridge, and that judgment was severed and appealed. The court of appeals affirmed, holding that Sandridge lacked either contractual or actual control over the transportation of workers to the drilling site and that Burchett was not Sandridge's employee or borrowed servant at the time of the accident.

Painter v. Sandridge Energy, Inc. , 511 S.W.3d 713, 723–26 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2015, pet. denied). We denied Painter's petition for review.

Meanwhile, Amerimex filed its own summary-judgment motion, primarily arguing the plaintiffs' claims are barred by the Workers' Compensation Act's exclusive-remedy provision. See TEX. LAB. CODE § 408.001(a) ("Recovery of workers' compensation benefits is the exclusive remedy of an employee covered by workers' compensation insurance coverage or a legal beneficiary against the employer ... for the death of or a work-related injury sustained by the employee."). After that motion was denied, Amerimex filed a second summary-judgment motion, this time arguing Painter's vicarious-liability claim fails because no evidence shows Amerimex controlled the details of Burchett's work at the time of the accident (or, alternatively, the evidence conclusively demonstrates the absence of such control). The trial court granted this motion, severed the claims against Amerimex into a separate cause, and rendered a final take-nothing judgment in Amerimex's favor. Painter appealed.

The court of appeals acknowledged the existence of a fact issue as to whether Burchett was in the course and scope of his employment for workers'-compensation purposes. 511 S.W.3d 700, 707 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2015). However, the court concluded that, for vicarious liability to attach, "Amerimex must undertake some control as with the route or the means of transport, which might correspondingly reflect on the risk of the accident itself." Id. at 712. The court held that no evidence showed "Amerimex had or exercised any control over the manner of transportation—the type of vehicle used, the qualifications of the driver, the number of passengers, or any other issues which might implicate the kind of control that justifies shifting the risk of loss from one party to another." Id. at 713. Accordingly, the court of appeals affirmed the trial court's summary judgment for Amerimex. We granted Painter's petition for review.

II. Standard of Review

Amerimex filed a combined traditional and no-evidence summary-judgment motion. See TEX. R. CIV. P. 166a(c), (i). We review no-evidence motions under the same legal sufficiency standard as a directed verdict. Merriman v. XTO Energy, Inc. , 407 S.W.3d 244, 248 (Tex. 2013). Under this standard, the nonmovant has the burden to produce more than a scintilla of evidence to support each challenged element of its claims. Id. In a traditional motion, the movant has the burden to show there is no genuine issue of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. TEX. R. CIV. P. 166a(c). A defendant is entitled to summary judgment if it conclusively negates at least one element of the plaintiff's claim. Frost Nat'l Bank v. Fernandez , 315 S.W.3d 494, 508 (Tex. 2010). In reviewing either type of summary-judgment motion, we view the evidence "in the light most favorable to the nonmovant, crediting evidence a reasonable jury could credit and disregarding contrary evidence and inferences unless a reasonable jury could not." Merriman , 407 S.W.3d at 248 ; Valence Operating Co. v. Dorsett , 164 S.W.3d 656, 661 (Tex. 2005).

III. Vicarious Liability

A. General Framework

Under the common-law doctrine of respondeat superior, or vicarious liability, "liability for one person's fault may be imputed to another who is himself entirely without fault solely because of the relationship between them." St. Joseph Hosp. v. Wolff , 94 S.W.3d 513, 540 (Tex. 2002) (plurality op.) (citation omitted). The doctrine has been explained as "a...