Phi, Inc. v. Derek Leblanc & Am. Interstate Ins. Co.
| Decision Date | 25 February 2016 |
| Docket Number | NUMBER 13-14-00097-CV |
| Parties | PHI, INC., Appellant, v. DEREK LEBLANC AND AMERICAN INTERSTATE INSURANCE COMPANY, Appellees. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of Texas |
On appeal from the 24th District Court of Calhoun County, Texas.
Before Chief Justice Valdez and Justices Rodriguez and Longoria
Appellant, PHI, Inc., appeals from a verdict in favor of appellee, Derek LeBlanc on his personal injury cause of action. In the judgment, LeBlanc was ordered to pay to appellee, American Interstate Insurance Company $87,000 out of the proceeds of his net recovery from PHI.1 By five issues, that we have renumbered and reorganized, PHIcontends that the evidence is legally and factually insufficient (issues one and two), there was error in the jury charge (issues three and four), and the trial court improperly applied maritime law (issue five). We affirm.
Due to his work as a safety inspector, on June 10, 2010, LeBlanc traveled by helicopter to an offshore platform in the Gulf of Mexico. During the flight, before arriving at the platform, the pilot, Mike Warren and the passengers, LeBlanc and Gregory Witten, heard a loud noise, and the helicopter immediately went into a nose dive. Warren was able to regain control of the helicopter and was able to deploy the helicopter's flotation system and land on the water. When the helicopter landed on the water, it flipped over completely. The passengers exited the helicopter, and men on a nearby crew boat rescued Warren and Witten, while a team of divers rescued LeBlanc. As a result of the incident, LeBlanc claimed he suffered injuries, both mental and physical.
LeBlanc filed suit against (1) PHI, the business that chartered the helicopter, (2) Apical Industries, Inc., the manufacturer of the flotation system (Apical), and (3) Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., the manufacturer of the helicopter (Bell). Subsequently, LeBlanc nonsuited his claim against Bell; however, the trial court granted Apical's and PHI's motions to designate Bell as a responsible third party.2 See TEX. CIV. PRAC. & REM. CODE ANN. § 33.004 (West, Westlaw through 2015 R.S.).
At trial, evidence was presented that the helicopter's tail rotor drive system had somehow failed. However, the trial court concluded that there was no evidence for thejury to determine what had actually caused the tail rotor failure because the tail boom broke off during recovery of the wreckage and was lost at sea. The trial court decided that no instruction would be given to the jury concerning whether Bell was responsible for the accident because no one could determine what had gone wrong with the tail rotor.3 Based on its conclusion that there was no evidence regarding the tail rotor failure, the trial court limited the jury to only considering the events that occurred after the helicopter landed in the water in determining liability and damages. According to PHI, the trial court also refused its requested question to the jury asking whether the flotation system was defective.4
The jury returned a verdict in favor of LeBLanc, finding PHI negligent, and it awarded damages to LeBlanc. The jury found that Apical had not been negligent. The trial court rendered judgment in LeBlanc's favor. This appeal followed.
By its first issue, PHI contends that there is no evidence to support the jury's finding that LeBlanc's injuries occurred after the helicopter landed in the water, as defined in the jury charge. By its second issue, PHI contends that the evidence is legally insufficient to support the jury's award of damages for past medical expenses.
A legal sufficiency challenge will be sustained when the record shows: (1) the complete absence of a vital fact; (2) the court is barred by rules of law or evidence fromgiving weight to the only evidence offered to prove a vital fact; (3) the evidence offered to prove a vital fact is no more than a scintilla; or (4) the evidence conclusively establishes the opposite of a vital fact. City of Keller v. Wilson, 168 S.W.3d 802, 810 (Tex. 2005). A "no evidence" or legal insufficiency point is a question of law challenging the sufficiency of the evidence to support a particular fact finding. In re Estate of Livingston, 999 S.W.2d 874, 879 (Tex. App.—El Paso 1999, no pet.).
In a legal sufficiency review, the appellate court "must view the evidence in the light favorable to the verdict, crediting favorable evidence if reasonable jurors could, and disregarding contrary evidence unless reasonable jurors could not." City of Keller, 168 S.W.3d at 830. The final test for legal sufficiency must always be whether the evidence at trial would enable reasonable and fair-minded people to reach the verdict under review. Id. at 822. In our review, we are mindful that the jury remains the sole judge of witnesses' credibility and the weight to be given to their testimony. Id. at 819-20. Moreover, in our legal sufficiency review, we must afford deference to the jury's resolution of conflicts in the evidence, and we must presume that the jury resolved all conflicts in favor of the verdict. Id. at 820-21.
First, PHI argues that the evidence is insufficient to show that LeBlanc's injuries occurred after the helicopter landed; thus, there is no evidence that its conduct caused LeBlanc's injuries.5 Specifically, PHI complains that there is no evidence that LeBlanc suffered his injuries after the helicopter landed and that the evidence actually established LeBlanc was injured prior to the helicopter landing. PHI relies on the trial court's juryinstruction in Question 1 defining the "occurrence in question" as "the inversion of the Helicopter after it had landed in the water and all subsequent events leading up to [LeBlanc] arriving on the drilling platform where he was picked up for transport to Galveston." Question 1 asked, "Did the negligence, if any, [PHI and Apical] proximately cause the occurrence in question?" Thus, in essence the question asked, if either PHI's or Apical's negligence caused, in relevant part, the inversion of the helicopter after it landed in the water. The jury answered, "Yes" as to PHI and "No" as to Apical.
PHI contends that Question 1's definition of "occurrence in question" somehow only allowed the jury to find that LeBlanc's injuries occurred after the helicopter landed. Thus, PHI argues, the jury must have found that the roll-over and subsequent events caused LeBlanc's physical and mental injuries, and there is no evidence in the record to support such a finding.6
LeBlanc responds that he objected to the trial court's instruction regarding the occurrence in question and that because the definition was erroneous, we must measure the sufficiency of the evidence against the correct instruction.
Ordinarily we would address the legal sufficiency challenge first because it could lead to rendition of the cause. However, before we can measure the sufficiency of the evidence, we must identify the standard against which the evidence is to be measured. See St. Joseph Hosp. v. Wolff, 94 S.W.3d 513, 530 (Tex. 2002). If there has been no objection to the jury charge, then the charge actually submitted is the proper measure of the sufficiency of the evidence. Osterberg v. Peca, 12 S.W.3d 31, 55 (Tex. 2000). Butwhen, as in this case, an objection to the charge is properly preserved, we determine whether the charge submitted was erroneous and then measure the sufficiency of the evidence against the correct standard. See St. Joseph Hosp., 94 S.W.3d at 530.
Latham v. Burgher, 320 S.W.3d 602, 606 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2010, no pet.). Thus, before we proceed, we must determine whether LeBlanc properly preserved error, if any, in the charge and whether the charge was erroneous so that we may identify the proper standard against which the evidence is to be measured. See id.
At the charge conference, PHI argued that the helicopter crash included "two separate occurrences." According to PHI, the first occurrence began when the tail rotor failed and ended when the helicopter landed on the water, while the second occurrence began after the helicopter landed and included all events that occurred afterwards to LeBlanc's arrival at the drilling platform where he was picked up for transport to the hospital.7
LeBlanc argues that if one assumes arguendo that there were two separate "occurrences" that caused him harm, as the trial court concluded, these two separate occurrences caused one indivisible injury. LeBlanc relies on the Restatements (Second) of Torts section 433A, which he argues provides that "[w]hen there is no basis for determining the contributions of multiple causes to a single injury, each wrongdoer is responsible for the entire 'indivisible' injury."8
We only determine whether the charge given is erroneous when an objection is properly preserved. See St. Joseph Hosp., 94 S.W.3d at 530. Here, during the charge conference, LeBlanc's trial counsel stated that he objected to the entire question that included the definition of occurrence in question. After overruling LeBlanc's objection, the trial court stated, "Just so the record is clear, the objection that I've overruled is an objection posed by [LeBlanc] to the definition of the occurrence in question which limits the consideration of the jury to the injuries that were incurred beginning with the inversion of the helicopter and ending with the arrival of [LeBlanc] on the drilling platform where the PHI ambulance helicopter picked him up." Moreover, LeBlanc submitted a proposed jury charge, which included the following question: "Did the negligence, if any, of those named below proximately cause the injury in question," with the instruction, "Answer 'Yes' or 'No' for each of the following . . . PHI, Inc." LeBlanc's proposed charge contained no definition of the phrase "occurrence in...
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